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The Boffin Progress 

{See page 124) 



Our Mutual Friend 


BY 


CHARLES DICKENS 


Containing the 
forty original illustrations 



m t he RITTENHOU^E CLA5S IC5 

PHILADEL/PHIA 
GDOROD W JACOBS COMPANY 

PUBBISHBRS 



\ 

4 




CONTENTS 


BOOK THE FIRST. THE CUP AND THE LIP 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. On the Look-out 1 

II. The Man From Somewhere 7 

III. Another Man 20 

IV. The R. Wilfer Family 36 

V. Boffin's Bower 49 

VI. Cut Adrift 68 

VII. Mr. Wegg Looks After Himself 86 

VIII. Mr. Boffin in Consultation. 96 

IX. Mr. and Mrs. Boffin in Consultation Ill 

X. A Marriage Contract 128 

XL PODSNAPPERY 143 

XII. The Sweat of an Honest Man's Brow 161 

XIII. Tracking the Bird of Prey 179 

XIV. The Bird of Prey Brought Down 190 

XV. Two New Servants 199 

XVI. Minders and Reminders 215 

XVH. A Dismal Swamp 233 

BOOK THE SECOND. BIRDS OF A FEATHER 

I. Of an Educational Character 238 

II. Still Educational 259 

HI. A Piece of Work 272 

IV. Cupid Prompted 284 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER page 

V. Mercury Prompting 299 

VI. A Riddle Without an Answer 316 

VIL In Which a Friendly Move is Originated 331 

VIIL In Which an Innocent Elopement Occurs 344 

IX. In Which the Orphan Makes His Will 362 

X. A Successor 371 

XI. Some Affairs of the Heart 379^ 

XII. More Birds of Prey 393 

XHI. A Solo and a Duet 410 - 

XIV. Strong of Purpose 426 

XV. The Whole Case so Far 441 

XVI. An Anniversary Occasion 459 * 

BOOK THE THIRD. A LONG LANE 

I. Lodgers in Queer Street 473 

II. A Respected Friend in a New Aspect 488 

HI. The Same Respected Friend in More Aspects 

Than One 500 

IV. A Happy Return of the Day 507 

V. The Golden Dustman Falls Into Bad Company. 521 

VI. ‘The Golden Dustman Falls Into Worse Com- 

pany 538 

VII. The Friendly Move Takes up a Strong Position 555 

VIIL The End of a Long Journey 569 

IX. Somebody Becomes the Subject of a Prediction.. 582 

X. Scouts Out . : 601 

XL In the Dark 617 

XII. Meaning Mischief 628 

XIH. Give a Dog a Bad Name and Hang Him 638 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER page 

XIV. Mr. Wegg Prepares a Grindstone for Mr. Boffin’s 

Nose 650 

XV. The Golden Dustman at His Worst 664 

XVI. The Feast of the Three Hobgoblins 681 

XVH. A Social Chorus 698 

BOOK THE FOURTH. A TURNING 

I. Setting Traps 711 

II. The Golden Dustman Rises a Little 725 

III. The Golden Dustman Sinks Again 736 

IV. A Runaway Match 748 

V. Concerning the Mendicant’s Bride 760 

VI. A Cry for Help 780 

VII. Better to be Abel Than Cain 795 

VIII. A Few Grains of Pepper 808 

IX. Two Places Vacated 821 

X. The Dolls’ Dressmaker Discovers a Word 834 

XI. Effect is Given to the Dolls’ Dressmaker’s Dis- 
covery 842 

XH. The Passing Shadow 856 

XIH. Showing How the Golden Dustman Helped to 

Scatter Dust .' 871 

XIV. Checkmate to the Friendly Move 883 

XV. What Was Caught in the Traps That Were 

Set 897 

XVI. Persons and Things in General 910 

Chapter the Last. The Voice of Society 923 

Postscript, in Lieu of Preface 930 






LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Boffin Progress Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

The Bird of Prey 2 

Witnessing the Agreement 44 

At the Bar 70 

Mr. Venus Surrounded by the Trophies of His 

Art 90 

The Happy Pair 142 

PoDSNAPPERY 146 

Waiting for Father 184 

The Bird of Prey Brought Down 194 

Mrs. Boffin Discovers an Orpfian 220 

The Person of the House and the* Bad Child 268 

Bringing Him Down 282 

The Garden on the Roof 312 

Forming the Domestic Virtues 322 

Pa'’s Lodger and Pa^s Daughter 346 

Our Johnny 366 

Miss Riderhood at Home 396 

More Dead Than Alive 416 

The Boofer Lady 440 

A Friend in Need 454 

Trying on for the Doll’s Dressmaker 492 

Rogue Riderhood’s Recovery 506 

Bibliomania of the Golden Dustman 528 

The Dutch Bottle 552 

The Evil Genius and the House of Boffin 566 

The Flight 574 

Three Penn’orth Rum 608 

Mr. Fledgeby Departs on His Errand of Mercy... 636 


FACING PAGE 


Mr. Wegg Prepares a Grindstone for Mr, Boffin’s 

Nose 658 

Bella Righted by the Golden Dustman 664 

The Lovely Woman Has Her Fortune Told 696 

In the Lock-Keepers House 722 

The Wedding Dinner at Greenwich 754 

The Parting by the River 788 

Better to be Able Than Cain 806 

Miss Wren Fixes Her Ideas 832 

Eugene’s Bedside 836 

Light wood at Last 858 

Mr, Boffin Does the Honours of the Nursery 

Door 880 

Not to be Shaken Off 908 


OUK MUTUAL FRIEND 

IN FOUR BOOKS 


BOOK THE FIRST 
THE CUP AND THE LIP 

CHAPTER I 

ON THE LOOK-OUT 

In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year 
there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disre- 
putable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the 
Thames, between Southwark Bridge which is of iron, and 
London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening was 
closing in. 

The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with 
ragged grizzled hair and a sun-browned face, and a dark girl 
of nineteen or twenty, sufficiently like him to be recognisable 
as his daughter. The girl rowed, pulling a pair of sculls 
very easily; the man, with the rudder-lines slack in his hands, 
and his hands loose in his waistband, kept an eager look-out. 
He had no net, hook, or line, and he could not be a fisher- 
man; his boat had no cushion for a sitter, no paint, no in- 
scription, no appliance beyond a rusty boat-hook and a coil 
of rope, and he could not be a waterman; his boat was too 
crazy and too small to take in a cargo for delivery, and he 
could not be a lighterman or river-carrier; there was no clue 
to what he looked for, but he looked for something, with a 
most intent and searching gaze. The tide, which had turned 


2 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


an hour before, was running down, and his eyes watched 
every little race and eddy in its broad sweep, as the boat 
made slight headway against it, or drove stern foremost 
before it, according as he directed his daughter by a move- 
ment of his head. She watched his face as earnestly as she 
watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look there 
was a touch of dread or horror. 

Allied to the bottom of the river rather than the surface, 
by reason of the slime and ooze with which it was covered, 
and its sodden state, this boat and the two figures in it ob- 
viously were doing something that they often did, and were 
seeking what they often sought. Half savage as the man 
showed, with no covering on his matted head, with his brown 
arms bare to between the elbow and the shoulder, with the 
loose knot of a looser kerchief lying low on his bare breast 
in a wilderness of beard and whisker, with such dress as he 
wore seeming to be made out of the mud that begrimed his 
boat, still there was business-like usage in his steady gaze. 
So with every lithe action of the girl, with every turn of her 
wrist, perhaps most of all with her look of dread or horror; 
they were things of usage. 

“ Keep her out, Lizzie. Tide runs strong here. Keep her 
well afore the sweep of it.’^ 

Trusting to the girl’s skill and making no use of the rudder, 
he eyed the coming tide with an absorbed attention. So 
the girl eyed him. But, it happened now, that a slant of 
light from the setting sun glanced into the bottom of the 
boat, and, touching a rotten stain there which bore some re- 
semblance to the outline of a muffled human form, coloured 
it as though with diluted blood. This caught the girl’s eye, 
and she shivered. 

“ What ails you? ” said the man, immediately aware of it, 
though so intent on the advancing waters; “ I see nothing 
afloat.” 

The red light was gone, the shudder was gone, and his 
gaze, which had come back to the boat for a moment, travelled 
away again. Wheresoever the strong tide met with an im- 
pediment, his gaze paused for an instant. At every mooring 
chain and rope, at every stationary boat or barge that split 
the current into a broad-arrow-head, at the offsets from the 








ON THE LOOK-OUT 


3 


piers of Southwark Bridge, at the paddles of the river steam- 
boats as they beat the filthy water, at the floating logs of 
timber lashed together lying off certain wharves, his shining 
eyes darted a hungry look. After a darkening hour or so, 
suddenly the rudder-lines tightened in his hold, and he 
steered hard towards the Surrey shore. 

Always watching his face, the girl instantly answered to 
the action in her sculling; presently the boat swung round, 
quivered as from a sudden jerk, and the upper half of the 
man was stretched out over the stern. 

The girl pulled the hood of a cloak she wore, over her 
head and over her face, and, looking backward so that the 
front folds of this hood were turned down the river, kept 
the boat in that direction going before the tide. Until now^, 
the boat had barely held her own, and had hovered about 
one spot; but now, the banks changed swiftly, and the 
deepening shadows and the kindling lights of London 
Bridge were passed, and the tiers of shipping lay on either 
hand. 

It was not until now that the upper half of the man came 
back into the boat. His arms were wet and dirty, and he 
washed them over the side. In his right hand he held some- 
thing, and he washed that in the river too. It was money. 
He chinked it once, and he blew upon it once, and he spat 
upon it once, — “for luck,” he hoarsely said — before he put 
it in his pocket. 

“ Lizzie! ” 

The girl turned her face towards him with a start, and 
rowed in silence. Her face was very pale. He was a hook- 
nosed man, and with that and his bright eyes and his ruffled 
head, bore a certain likeness to a roused bird of prey. 

“ Take that thing off your face.” 

She put it back. 

“ Here! and give me hold of th^ sculls. I’ll take the rest 
of the spell.” 

“ No, no, father! No! I can’t indeed. Father! — I cannot 
sit so near it! ” 

He was moving towards her to change places, but her ter- 
rified expostulation stopped him and he resumed his seat. 

“ What hurt can it do you ? ” 


4 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


None, none. But I cannot bear it.” 

“ It’s my belief you hate the sight of the very river.” 

“I — I do not like it, father.” 

As if it wasn’t your living! As if it wasn’t meat and drink 
to you! ” 

At these latter words the girl shivered again, and for a 
moment paused in her rowing, seeming to turn deadly faint. 
It escaped his attention, for he was glancing over the stern at 
something the boat had in tow. 

“ How can you be so thankless to your best friend, Lizzie ? 
The very fire that warmed you when you were a baby, was 
picked out of the river alongside the coal barges. The very 
basket that you slept in, the tide washed ashore. The very 
rockers that I put it upon to make a cradle of it, I cut out 
of a piece of wood that drifted from some ship or another.” 

Lizzie took her right hand from the scull it held, and 
touched her lips with it, and for a moment held it out lovingly 
towards him; then, without speaking, she resumed her rowing, 
as another boat of similar appearance, though in rather 
better trim, came out from a dark place and dropped softly 
alongside. 

“ In luck again. Gaffer? ” said a man with a squinting leer, 
who sculled her, and who was alone. I know’d you was in 
luck again, by your wake as you come down.” 

“ Ah! ” replied the other, drily. “ So you’re out, are you ? ” 

“Yes, pardner.” 

There was now a tender yellow moonlight on the river, and 
the new comer, keeping half his boat’s length astern of the 
other boat, looked hard at its track. 

“ I says to myself,” he went on, “ directly you hove in 
view. Yonder’s Gaffer, and in luck again, by George if he 
ain’t! Scull it is, pardner — don’t fret yourself — I didn’t 
touch him.” This was in answer to a quick impatient move- 
ment on the part of Gaffer: the speaker at the same time 
unshipping his scull on that side, and laying his hand on 
the gunwale of Gaffer’s boat and holding to it. 

“ He’s had touches enough not to want no more, as well 
as I make him out. Gaffer! Been a knocking about with a 
pretty many tides, ain’t he, pardner? Such is my out-of- 
luck ways, you see! He must have passed me when he went 


ON THE LOOK-OUT 


5 


up last time, for I was on the look-out below bridge here. 
I almost think you’re like the wulturs, pardner, and scent 
’em out.” 

He spoke in a dropped voice, and with more than one 
glance at Lizzie, who had pulled on her hood again. Both 
men then looked with a weird unholy interest at the wake 
of Gaffer’s boat. 

“ Easy does it, betwixt us. Shall I take him aboard, 
pardner? ” 

“No,” said the other. In so surly a tone that the man, 
after a blank stare, acknowledged it with the retort: 

“ — Arn’t been eating nothing as has disagreed with you, 
have you, pardner? ” 

“ Why, yes, I have,” said Gaffer. “ I have been swallowing 
too much of that word, Pardner. I am no pardner of yours.” 

Since when was you no pardner of mine. Gaffer Hexam, 
Esquire ? ” 

“ Since you was accused of robbing a man. Accused of 
robbing a live man! ” said Gaffer, with great indignation. 

“ And what if I had been accused of robbing a dead man. 
Gaffer?” 

“ You couldn’t do it.” 

“ Couldn’t you. Gaffer? ” 

“ No. Has a dead man any use for money? Is it possible 
for a dead man to have money? What world does a dead 
man belong to? T’other world. What world does money 
belong to? This world. How can money be a corpse’s? 
Can a corpse own it, want it, spend it, claim it, miss it? 
Don’t try to go confounding the rights and wrongs of things 
in that way. But it’s worthy of the sneaking spirit that 
robs a live man.” 

“ I’ll tell you what it is — — ” 

“ No you won’t, /’ll tell you what it is. You’ve got off 
with a short time of it for putting your hand in the pocket 
of a sailor, a live sailor. Make the most of it and think 
yourself lucky, but don’t think after that to come over me 
with your pardners. We have worked together in time 
past, but we work together no more in time present nor yet 
future. Let go. Castoff!” 

“ Gaffer! If you think to get rid of me this way ” 


6 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ If I don’t get rid of you this way, I’ll try another, and 
chop you over the fingers with the stretcher, or take a pick 
at your head with the boat-hook. Cast off ! Pull you, Lizzie. 
Pull home, since you won’t let your father pull.” 

Lizzie shot ahead, and the other boat fell astern. Lizzie’s 
father, composing himself into the easy attitude of one who 
had asserted the high moralities and taken an unassailable 
position, slowly lighted a pipe, and smoked, and took a 
survey of what he had in tow. What he had in tow, lunged 
itself at him sometimes in an awful manner when the boat 
was checked, and sometimes seemed to try to wrench itself 
away, though for the most part it followed submissively. A 
neophyte might have fancied that the ripples passing over it 
were dreadfully like faint changes of expression on a sightless 
face; but Gaffer was no neophyte and had no fancies. 


CHAPTER II 


THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE 

Mr. and Mrs. Veneering were bran-new people in a bran- 
new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything 
about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their 
furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their ser- 
vants were new, their plate was »ew, their carriage was new, 
their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures 
were new, they themselves were new, they were as newly 
married as was lawfully compatible with their having a bran- 
new baby, and if they had set up a great-grandfather, he 
would have come home in matting from the Pantechnicon, 
without a scratch upon him, French-polished to the crown of 
his head. 

For, in the Veneering establishment, from the hall-chairs 
with the new coat of arms, to the grand pianoforte with the 
new action, and up-stairs again to the new fire-escape, all 
things were in a state of high varnish and polish. And what 
was observable in the furniture, was observable in the Veneer- 
ings — the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop 
and was a trifle sticky. 

There was an innocent piece of dinner-furniture that went 
upon easy castors and was kept over a livery stable-yard in 
Duke Street, Saint James’s, when not in use, to whom the 
Veneerings were a source of blind confusion. The name of 
this article was Twemlow. Being first cousin to Lord Snigs- 
worth, he was in frequent requisition, and at many houses 
might be said to represent the dining-table in its normal 
state. Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, for example, arranging a 
dinner, habitually started with Twemlow, and then put 
leaves in him, or added guests to him. Sometimes, the table 
consisted of Twemlow and half-a-dozen leaves; sometimes, of 


8 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Twemlow and a dozen leaves; sometimes, Twemlow was 
pulled out to his utmost extent of twenty leaves. Mr. and 
Mrs. Veneering on occasions of ceremony faced each other in 
the centre of the board, and thus the parallel still held; for, 
it always happened that the more Twemlow was pulled out, 
the further he found himself from the centre, and the nearer 
to the sideboard at one end of the room, or the window- 
curtains at the other. 

But, it was not this which steeped the feeble soul of Twem- 
low in confusion. This he was used to, and could take 
soundings of. The abyss to which he could find no bottom, 
and from which started forth the engrossing and ever-swelling 
difficulty of his life, was the insoluble question whether he 
was Veneering’s oldest friend, or newest friend. To the 
excogitation of this problem, the harmless gentleman had 
devoted many anxious hours, both in his lodgings over the 
livery stable-yard, and in the cold gloom, favourable to medi- 
tation, of St. James’s Square. Thus. Twemlow had first 
known Veneering at his club, where Veneering then knew 
nobody but the man who made them known to one another, 
who seemed to be the most intimate friend he had in the 
world, and whom he had known two days — the bond of 
union between their souls, the nefarious conduct of the 
committee respecting the cookery of a fillet of veal, having 
been accidentally cemented at that date. Immediately upon 
this, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with Veneering, 
and dined: the man being of the party. Immediately upon 
that, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with the man, 
and dined: Veneering being of the party. At the man’s 
were a Member, an Engineer, a Payer-off of the National 
Debt, a Poem on Shakespeare, a Grievance, and a Public 
Office, who all seemed to be utter strangers to Veneering. 
And yet immediately after that, Twemlow received an invita- 
tion to dine at Veneering’s, expressly to meet the Member, 
the Engineer, the Payer-off of the National Debt, the Poem 
on Shakespeare, the Grievance, and the Public Office, and, 
dining, discovered that all of them were the most intimate 
friends Veneering had in the world, and that the wives of 
all of them (who were all there) were the objects of Mrs. 
Veneering’s most devoted affection and tender confidence. 


THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE 


9 


Thus it had come about, that Mr. Twemlow had said to 
himself in his lodgings, with his hand to his forehead: “ I 
must not. think of this. This is enough to soften any man^s 
brain,” — and yet was always thinking of it, and could never 
form a conclusion. 

This evening the Veneerings give a banquet. Eleven leaves 
in the Twemlow; fourteen in company all told. Four pigeon- 
breasted retainers in plain clothes stand in line in the hall. 
A fifth retainer, proceeding up the staircase with a mournful 
air — as who should say, “ Here is another wretched crea- 
ture come to dinner; such is life! ” — announces, “ Mis-ter 
Twemlow!” 

Mrs. Veneering welcomes her sweet Mr. Twemlow. Mr. 
Veneering welcomes his dear Twemlow. Mrs. Veneering does 
not expect that Mr. Twemlow can in nature care much for 
such insipid things as babies, but so old a friend must please 
look at baby. “Ah! You will know the friend of your 
family better, Tootleums,” says Mr. Veneering, nodding 
emotionally at that new article, “ when you begin to take 
notice.” He then begs to make his dear Twemlow known to 
his two friends, Mr. Boots and Mr. Brewer — and clearly 
has no distinct idea which is which. 

But now a fearful circumstance occurs. 

“ Mis-ter and Mis-sis Podsnap! ” 

“ My dear,” says Mr. Veneering to Mrs. Veneering, with an 
air of much friendly interest, while the door stands open, 
“ the Podsnaps.” 

A too, too smiling large man, with a fatal freshness on him, 
appearing with his wife, instantly deserts his wife and darts 
at Twemlow with: 

“ How do you do ? So glad to know you. Charming house 
you have here. I hope we are not late. So glad of this op- 
portunity, I am sure! ” 

When the first shock fell upon him, Twemlow twice skipped 
back in his neat little shoes and his neat little silk stockings 
of a bygone fashion, as if impelled to leap over a sofa behind 
him; but the large man closed with him and proved too 
strong. 

“ Let me,” says the large man, trying to attract the atten- 
tion of his wife in the distance, “ have the pleasure of pre- 


10 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


senting Mrs. Pod snap to her host. She will be/* in his fatal 
freshness he seems to find perpetual verdure and eternal 
youth in the phrase, “ she will be so glad of the opportunity, 
I am sure! ” 

In the meantime, Mrs. Podsnap, unable to originate a 
mistake on her own account, because Mrs. Veneering is the 
only other lady there, does her best in the way of handsomely 
supporting her husband’s, by looking towards Mr. Twemlow 
with a plaintive countenance and remarking to Mrs. Veneering 
in a feeling manner, firstly, that she fears he has been rather 
bilious of late, and, secondly, that the baby is already very 
like him. 

It is questionable whether any man quite relishes being 
mistaken for any other man; but Mr. Veneering having this 
very evening set up the shirt-front of the young Antinous 
(in new worked cambric just come home), is not at all com- 
plimented by being supposed to be Twemlow, who is dry and 
weazen and some thirty years older. Mrs. Veneering equally 
resents the imputation of being the wife of Twemlow. As 
to Twemlow, he is so sensible of being a much better bred 
man than Veneering, that he considers the large man an 
offensive ass. 

In this complicated dilemma, Mr. Veneering approaches 
the large man with extended hand, and smilingly assures that 
incorrigible personage that he is delighted to see him: who 
in his fatal freshness instantly replies: 

“ Thank you. I am ashamed to say that I cannot at this 
moment recall where we met, but I am so glad of this oppor- 
tunity, I am sure 1 ” 

Then pouncing upon Twemlow, who holds back with all 
his feeble might, he is haling him off to present him, as 
Veneering, to Mrs. Podsnap, when the arrival of more guests 
unravels the mistake. Whereupon, having re-shaken hands 
with Veneering as Veneering, he re-shakes hands with Twem- 
low as Twemlow, and winds it all up to his own perfect 
satisfaction by saying to the last-named, “ Ridiculous oppor- 
tunity — but so glad of it, I am sure! ” 

Now, Twemlow having undergone this terrific experience, 
having likewise noted the fusion of Boots in Brewer and 
Brewer in Boots, and having further obsers^ed that of the re- 


THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE 


11 


maining seven guests four discreet characters enter with 
wandering eyes and wholly decline to commit themselves as 
to which is Veneering, until Veneering has them in his 
grasp; — Twemlow having profited by these studies, finds his 
brain wholesomely hardening as he approaches the conclusion 
that he really is Veneering’s oldest friend, when his brain 
softens again and all is lost, through his eyes encountering 
Veneering and the large man linked together as twin brothers 
in the back drawing-room near the conservatory door, and 
through his ears informing him in the tones of Mrs. Veneering 
that the same large man is to be baby’s godfather. 

Dinner is on the table! ” 

Thus the melancholy retainer, as who should say, “ Come 
down and be poisoned, ye unhappy children of men I ” 

Twemlow, having no lady assigned him, goes down in the 
rear, with his hand to his forehead. Boots and Brewer, 
thinking him indisposed, whisper, “ Man faint. Had no 
lunch.” But he is only stunned by the unvanquishable diffi- 
culty of his existence. 

Revived by soup, Twemlow discourses mildly of the Court 
Circular with Boots and Brewer. Is appealed to, at the fish 
stage of the banquet, by Veneering, on the disputed question 
whether his cousin I.rord Snigsworth is in or out of town? 
Gives it that his cousin is out of town. “ At Snigsworthy 
Park? ” Veneering inquires. At Snigsworthy,” Twemlow 
rejoins. Boots and Brewer regard this as a man to be culti- 
vated; and Veneering is clear that he is a remunerative 
article. Meantime the retainer goes round, like a gloomy 
Analytical Chemist; always seeming to say, after “ Chablis, 
sir? ” — “ You wouldn’t if you knew what it’s made of.” 

The great looking-glass above the sideboard reflects the 
table and the company. Reflects the new Veneering crest, in 
gold and eke in silver, frosted and also thawed, a camel of 
all work. The Herald’s College found out a Crusading 
ancestor for Veneering who bore a camel on his shield (or 
might have done it if he had thought of it), and a caravan 
of camels take charge of the fruits and flowers and candles, 
and kneel down to be loaded with the salt. Reflects Veneer- 
ing; forty, wavy-haired, dark, tending to corpulence, sly, 
mysterious, filmy — a kind of sufficiently well-looking veiled- 


12 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


prophet, not prophesying. Reflects Mrs. Veneering; fair, 
aquiline-nosed and fingered, not so much light hair as she 
might have, gorgeous in raiment and jewels, enthusiastic, 
propitiatory, conscious that a corner of her husband’s veil is 
over herself. Reflects Podsnap; prosperously feeding, two 
little light-coloured wiry wings, one on either side of his else 
bald head, looking as like his hair-brushes as his hair, dis- 
solving view of red beads on his forehead, large allowance 
of crumpled shirt-collar up behind. Reflects Mrs. Podsnap; 
fine woman for Professor Owen, quantity of bone, neck and 
nostrils like a rocking-horse, hard features, majestic head- 
dress in which Podsnap has hung golden offerings. Reflects 
Twemlow; gray, dry, polite, susceptible to east wind, First- 
Gentleman-in-Europe collar and cravat, cheeks drawn in as if 
he had made a great effort to retire into himself some years 
ago, and had got so far and had never got any farther. Re- 
flects mature young lady; raven locks, and complexion that 
lights up well when well-powdered — as it is — carrying on 
considerably in the captivation of mature young gentleman; 
with too much nose in his face, too much ginger in his whiskers, 
too much torso in his waistcoat, too much sparkle in his studs, 
his eyes, his buttons, his talk, and his teeth. Reflects charm- 
ing old Lady Tippins on Veneering’ s right; with an immense 
obtuse drab oblong faee, like a face in a tablespoon, and 
a dyed I^ong Walk up the top of her head, as a convenient 
public approach to the bunch of false hair behind, pleased to 
patronise Mrs. Veneering opposite, who is pleased to be 
patronised. Reflects a certain “ Mortimer,” another of 
Veneering’s oldest friends; who never was in the house 
before, and appears not to want to come again, who sits 
disconsolate on Mrs. Veneering’s left, and who was inveigled 
by Lady Tippins (a friend of his boyhood) to come to these 
people’s and talk, and who won’t talk. Reflects Eugene, 
friend of Mortimer; buried alive in the back of his chair, 
behind a shoulder — with a powder-epaulette on it — of the 
mature young lady, and gloomily resorting to the champagne 
chalice whenever proffered by the Analytical Chemist. Lastly, 
the looking-glass reflects Boots and Brewer, and two other 
stuffed Buffers interposed between the rest of the company 
and possible accidents. 


THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE 


13 


The Veneering dinners are excellent dinners — or new 
people wouldn’t come — and all goes well. Notably, Lady 
Tippins has made a series of experiments on her digestive 
functions, so extremely complicated and daring, that if they 
could be published with their results it might benefit the 
human race. Having taken in provisions from all parts of 
the world, this hardy old cruiser has last touched at the 
North Pole, when, as the ice-plates are being removed, the 
following words fall from her: 

“ I assure you, my dear Veneering ” 

(Poor Twemlow’s hand approaches his forehead, for it 
would seem now, that Lady Tippins is going to be the oldest 
friend.) 

“ I assure you, my dear Veneering, that it is the oddest 
affair! Like the advertising people, I don’t ask you to trust 
me, without offering a respectable reference. Mortimer there, 
is my reference, and knows all about it.” 

Mortimer raises his drooping eyelids, and slightly opens 
his mouth. But a faint smile, expressive of “What’s the 
use!” passes over his face, and he drops his eyelids and shuts 
his mouth. 

“ Now, Mortimer,” says Lady Tippins, rapping the sticks 
of her closed green fan upon the knuckles of her left hand — 
which is particularly rich in knuckles, “ I insist upon your 
telling all that is to be told about the man from Jamaica.” 

“ Give you my honour I never heard of any man from 
Jamaica, except the man who was a brother,” replies Mortimer. 

“ Tobago, then.” 

“ Nor yet from Tobago.” 

“Except,” Eugene strikes in: so unexpectedly that the 
mature young lady, who has forgotten all about him, with a 
start takes the epaulette out of his way: “ except our friend 
who long lived on rice-pudding and isinglass, till at length 
to his something or other, his physician said something else, 
and a leg of mutton somehow ended in daygo.” 

A reviving impression goes round the table that Eugene is 
coming out. An unfulfilled impression, for he goes in again. 

“ Now, my dear Mrs. Veneering,” quoth Lady Tippins, “ I 
appeal to you whether this is not the basest conduct ever 
known in this world ? I carry my lovers about, two or three 


14 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


at a time, on condition that they are very obedient and 
devoted ; and here is my old lover-in-chief, the head of all my 
slaves, throwing off his allegiance before company! And here 
is another of my lovers, a rough Cymon at present, certainly, 
but of whom I had most hopeful expectations as to his turn- 
ing out well in course of time, pretending that he can’t 
remember his nursery rhymes! On purpose to annoy me, for 
he knows how I dote upon them! ” 

A grisly little fiction concerning her lovers is I^ady Tip- 
pins’s point. She is always attended by a lover or two, and 
she keeps a little list of her lovers, and she is always booking 
a new lover, or striking out an old lover, or putting a lover 
in her black list, or promoting a lover to her blue list, or add- 
ing up her lovers, or otherwise posting her book. Mrs. Ve- 
neering is charmed by the humour, and so is Veneering. 
Perhaps it is enhanced by a certain yellow play in Lady 
Tippins’s throat, like the legs of scratching poultry. 

“ I banish the false wretch from this moment, and I strike 
him out of my Cupidon (my name for my Ledger, my dear) 
this very night. But I am resolved to have the account of 
the man from Somewhere, and I beg you to elicit it for me, 
my love,” to Mrs. Veneering, “ as I have lost my own in- 
fluence. Oh, you perjured man!” This to Mortimer, with 
a rattle of her fan. 

“ We are all very much interested in the man from Some- 
where,” Veneering observes. 

Then the four Buffers, taking heart of grace all four at 
once, say: 

Deeply interested! ” 

“ Quite excited! ” 

“ Dramatic! ” 

“ Man from Nowhere, perhaps! ” 

And then Mrs. Veneering — for Lady Tippins’s winning 
wiles are contagious — folds her hands in the manner of a 
supplicating child, turns to her left neighbour, and says, 
“Tease! Pay! Man from Tumwhere ! ” At which the four 
Buffers, again mysteriously moved all four at once, exclaim, 
“ You can’t resist! ” 

“ Upon my life,” says Mortimer, languidly, “ I find it 
immensely embarrassing to have the eyes of Europe upon me 


THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE 


15 


to this extent, and my only consolation is that you will all 
of you execrate Lady Tippins in your secret hearts when you 
find, as you inevitably will, the man from Somewhere a bore. 
Sorry to destroy romance by fixing him with a local habita- 
tion, but he comes from the place, the name of which escapes 
me, but will suggest itself to everybody else here, where they 
make the wine.” 

Eugene suggests “ Day and Martin’s.” 

“ No, not that place,” returns the unmoved Mortimer, 

that’s where they make the Port. My man comes from the 
country where they make the Cape wine. But look here, 
old fellow; it’s not at all statistical and it’s rather odd.” 

It is always noticeable at the table of the Veneerings, that 
no man troubles himself much about the Veneerings them- 
selves, and that any one who has anything to tell, generally 
tells it to anybody else in preference. 

“ The man,” Mortimer goes on, addressing Eugene, 
“ whose name is Harmon, was only son of a tremendous old 
rascal who made his money by Dust.” 

“Red velveteens and a bell?” the gloomy Eugene in- 
quires. 

“And a ladder and basket if you like. By which means, 
or by others, he grew rich as a Dust Contractor, and lived 
in a hollow in a hilly country entirely composed of Dust. 
On his own small estate the growling old vagabond threw 
up his own mountain range, like an old volcano, and its 
geological formation was Dust. Coal-dust, vegetable-dust, 
bone-dust, crockery dust, rough dust, and sifted dust — all 
manner of Dust.” 

A passing remembrance of Mrs. Veneering, here induces 
Mortimer to address his next half-dozen words to her; after 
which he wanders away again, tries Twemlow and finds he 
doesn’t answer, ultimately takes up with the Buffers, who 
receive him enthusiastically. 

“ The moral being — I believe that’s the right expression 
— of this exemplary person, derived its highest gratification 
from anathematising his nearest relations and turning them 
out of doors. Having begun (as was natural) by rendering 
these attentions to the wife of his bosom, he next found him- 
self at leisure to bestow a similar recognition on the claims 


16 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


of his daughter. He chose a husband for her, entirely to his 
own satisfaction and not in the least to hers, and proceeded 
to settle upon her, as her marriage portion, I don't know 
how much Dust, but something immense. At this stage of 
the affair the poor girl respectfully intimated that she was 
secretly engaged to that popular character whom the novelists 
and versifiers call Another, and that such a marriage would 
make Dust of her heart and Dust of her life — in short, would 
set her up, on a very extensive scale, in her father’s business. 
Immediately, the venerable parent — on a cold winter’s night, 
it is said — anathematised and turned her out.” 

Here, the Analytical Chemist (who has evidently formed a 
very low opinion of Mortimer’s story) concedes a little claret 
to the Buffers; who, again mysteriously moved all four at 
once, screw it slowly into themselves with a peculiar twist of 
enjoyment, as they cry in chorus, “ Pray go on.” 

“ The pecuniary resources of Another were, as they usually 
are, of a very limited nature. I believe I am not using too 
strong an expression when I say that Another was hard up. 
However, he married the young lady, and they lived in a 
humble dwelling, probably possessing a porch ornamented 
with honeysuckle and woodbine twining, until she died. I 
must refer you to the Registrar of the District in which the 
humble dwelling was situated, for the certified cause of 
death; but early sorrow and anxiety may have had to do 
with it, though they may not appear in the ruled pages and 
printed forms. Indisputably this was the case with Another, 
for he was so cut up by the loss of his young wife that if he 
outlived her a year it was as much as he did.” 

There is that in the indolent Mortimer, which seems to 
hint that if good society might on any account allow itself 
to be impressible, he, one of good society, might have the 
weakness to be impressed by what he here relates. It is 
hidden with great pains, but it is in him. The gloomy 
Eugene, too, is not without some kindred touch; for, when 
that appalling Lady Tippins declares that if Another had 
survived, he should have gone down at the head of her list 
of lovers — and also when the mature young lady shrugs her 
epaulettes, and laughs at some private and confidential 
comment from the mature young gentleman — his gloom 


THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE 17 

deepens to that degree that he trifles quite ferociously with 
his dessert-knife. 

Mortimer proceeds. 

“ We must now return, as the novelists say, and as we all 
wish they wouldn’t, to the man from Somewhere. Being a 
boy of fourteen, cheaply educating at Brussels when his 
sister’s expulsion befell, it was some little time before he 
heard of it — probably from herself, for the mother was dead ; 
but that I don’t know. Instantly, he absconded, and came 
over here. He must have been a boy of spirit and resource, 
to get here on a stopped allowance of five sous a week; but 
he did it somehow, and he burst in on his father, and pleaded 
his sister’s cause. Venerable parent promptly resorts to 
anathematisation, and turns him out. Shocked and terrified 
boy takes flight, seeks his fortune, gets aboard ship, ultimately 
turns up on dry land among the Cape wine: small proprietor, 
farmer, grower — whatever you like to call it.” 

At this juncture, shuffling is heard in the hall, and tapping 
is heard at the dining-room door. Analytical Chemist goes to 
the door, confers angrily with unseen tapper, appears to be- 
come mollified by descrying reason in the tapping, and 
goes out. 

“ So he was discovered, only the other day, after having 
been expatriated about fourteen years.” 

A Buffer, suddenly astounding the other three, by detach- 
ing himself, and asserting individuality, inquires: “ How 
discovered, and why?” 

“ Ah! To be sure. Thank you for reminding me. Vener- 
able parent dies.” 

Same Buffer, emboldened by success, says: “ When?” 

“ The other day. Ten or twelve months ago.” 

Same Buffer inquires with smartness, ‘‘ What of?” But 
herein perishes a melancholy example; being regarded by the 
three other Buffers with a stony stare, and attracting no 
further attention from any mortal. 

Venerable parent,” Mortimer repeats with a passing 
remembrance that there is a Veneering at table, and for the 
first time addressing him — “ dies.” 

The gratified Veneering repeats, gravely, '' dies; ” and 
folds his arms, and composes his brow to hear it out in a 


18 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


judicial manner, when he finds himself again deserted in the 
l)leak world. 

“ His will is found,” says Mortimer, catching Mrs. Pod- 
snap’s rocking-horse’s eye. “ It is dated very soon after 
the son’s flight. It leaves the lowest of the range of dust- 
mountains, with some sort of a dwelling-house at its foot, to 
an old servant who is sole executor, and all the rest of the 
property — which is very considerable — to the son. He 
directs himself to be buried with certain eccentric ceremonies 
and precautions against his coming to life, with which I need 
not bore you, and that’s all — except — ” and this ends the 
story. 

The Analytical Chemist returning, everybody looks at him. 
Not because anybody wants to see him, but because of that 
subtle influence in nature which impels humanity to embrace 
the slightest opportunity of looking at anything, rather than 
the person who addresses it. 

“ — Except that the son’s inheritance is made conditional 
on his marrying a girl, who at the date of the will, was a 
child of four or five years old, and who is now a marriageable 
young woman. Advertisement and inquiry discovered the son 
in the man from Somewhere, and at the present moment, he 
is on his way home from there — no doubt, in a state of great 
astonishment — to succeed to a very large fortune, and to 
take a wife.” 

Mrs. Podsnap inquires whether the young person is a 
young person of personal charms? Mortimer is unable to 
report. 

Mr. Podsnap inquires what would become of the very large 
fortune, in the event of the marriage condition not being 
fulfilled? Mortimer replies, that by special testamentary 
clause it would then go to the old servant above mentioned, 
passing over and excluding the son; also, that if the son had 
not been living, the same old servant would have been sole 
residuary legatee. 

Mrs. Veneering has just succeeded in waking Lady Tip- 
pins from a snore, by dexterously shunting a train of plates 
and dishes at her knuckles across the table; when everybody 
but Mortimer himself becomes aware that the Analytical 
Chemist is, in a ghostly manner, offering him a folded 


THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE 19 

paper. Curiosity detains Mrs. Veneering a few mo- 
ments. 

Mortimer, in spite of all the arts of the chemist, placidly 
refreshes himself with a glass of Madeira, and remains 
unconscious of the document which engrosses the general 
attention, until Lady Tippins (who has a habit of waking 
totally insensible), having remembered where she is, and 
recovered a perception of surrounding objects, says: “ Falser 
man than Don Juan; why don’t you take the note from the 
Commendatore ? ” Upon which, the chemist advances it 
under the nose of Mortimer, who looks round at him, and 
says: 

“What’s this?” 

Analytical Chemist bends and whispers. 

“ Who f ” says Mortimer. 

Analytical Chemist again bends and whispers. 

Mortimer stares at him, and unfolds the paper. Reads it, 
reads it twice, turns it over to look at the blank outside, 
reads it a third time. 

“ This arrives in an extraordinarily opportune manner,” 
says Mortimer then, looking with an altered face round the 
table: “ this is the conclusion of the story of the identical 
man.” 

“ Already married ? ” one guesses. 

“ Declines to marry ? ” another guesses. 

“ Codicil among the dust?” another guesses. 

“ Why, no,” says Mortimer; “ remarkable thing, you are 
all wrong. The story is completer and rather more exciting 
than I supposed. Man’s drowned I ” 


CHAPTER III 


ANOTHER MAN 

As the disappearing skirts of the ladies ascended the Veneer- 
ing staircase, Mortimer following them forth from the dining- 
room, turned into a library of bran-new books, in bran-new 
bindings liberally gilded, and requested to see the messenger 
who had brought the paper. He was a boy of about fifteen. 
Mortimer looked at the boy, and the boy looked at the bran- 
new pilgrims on the wall, going to Cainterbury in more gold 
frame than procession, and more carving than country. 

“ Whose writing is this ? 

Mine, sir.’^ 

“ Who told you to write it ? ” 

My father, Jesse Hexam.’* 

Is it he who found the body ? ” 

Yes, sir.” 

What is your father ? ” 

The boy hesitated, looked reproachfully at the pilgrims as 
if they had involved him in a little difficulty, then said, 
folding a plait in the right leg of his trousers, “ He gets his 
living along-shore.” 

“ Is it far?” 

“ Is which far? ” asked the boy, upon his guard, and again 
upon the road to Canterbury. 

“ To your father’s? ” 

It’s a goodish stretch, sir. I come up in a cab, and the 
cab’s waiting to be paid. We could go back in it before you 
paid it, if you liked. I went first to your office, according to 
the direction of the papers found in the pockets, and there I 
see nobody but a chap of about my age who sent me on here.” 

There was a curious mixture in the boy, of uncompleted 
savagery, and uncompleted civilisation. His voice was hoarse 


ANOTHER MAN 


21 


and coarse, and his face was coarse, and his stunted figure 
was coarse; but he was cleaner than other boys of his type; 
and his writing, though large and round, was good; and he 
glanced at the backs of the books, with an awakened curiosity 
that went below the binding. No one who can read, ever looks 
at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot. 

“ Were any means taken, do you know, boy, to ascertain 
if it was possible to restore life ? ” Mortimer inquired, as he 
sought for his hat. 

“You wouldn’t ask, sir, if you knew his state. Pharaoh’s 
multitude, that were drowned in the Red Sea, ain’t more 
beyond restoring to life. If Lazarus was only half as far 
gone, that was the greatest of all the miracles.” 

“Halloa!” cried Mortimer, turning round with his hat 
upon his head, “ you seem to be at home in the Red Sea, my 
young friend ? ” 

“ Read of it with teacher at the school,” said the boy. 

“ And Lazarus ? ” 

“ Yes, and him too. But don’t you tell my father! We 
should have no peace in our place, if that got touched upon. 
It’s my sister’s contriving.” 

“ You seem to have a good sister.” 

“ She ain’t half bad,” said the boy; “ but if she knows her 
letters it’s the most she does — and them I learned her.” 

The gloomy Eugene, with his hands in his pockets, had 
strolled in and assisted at the latter part of the dialogue; 
when the boy spoke these words slightingly of his sister, he 
took him roughly enough by the chin and turned up his face 
to look at it. 

“ Well, I am sure, sir! ” said the boy, resisting; “ I hope 
you’ll know me again.” 

Eugene vouchsafed no answer; but made the proposal to 
Mortimer, “ I’ll go with you, if you like ? ” So, they all 
three went away together in the vehicle that had brought 
the boy; the two friends (once boys together at a public 
school) inside, smoking cigars; the messenger on the box 
beside the driver. 

“ Let me see,” said Mortimer, as they went along; “ I 
have been, Eugene, upon the honourable roll of solicitors of 
the High Court of Chancery, and attorneys at Common Law, 


22 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


five years ; and — except gratuitously taking instructions, on 
an average once a fortnight, for the will of Lady Tippins 
who has nothing to leave — I have had no scrap of business 
but this romantic business.” 

And I,” said Eugene, “ have been ‘ called ’ seven years, 
and have had no business at all, and never shall have any. 
And if I had, I shouldn’t know how to do it.” 

“ I am far from being clear as to the last particular,” 
returned Mortimer, with great composure, “ that I have much 
advantage over you.” 

‘‘ I hate,” said Eugene, putting his legs up on the opposite 
seat, “ I hate my profession.” 

“ Shall I incommode you if I put mine up too? ” returned 
Mortimer. “ Thank you. I hate mine.” 

“It was forced upon me,” said the gloomy Eugene, 
“ because it was understood that we wanted a barrister in 
the family. We have got a precious one.” 

“ It was forced upon me,” said Mortimer, “ because it was 
understood that we wanted a solicitor in the family. And 
we have got a precious one.’* 

“ There are four of us, with our names painted on a door- 
post in right of one black hole called a set of chambers,” 
said Eugene; “ and each of us has the fourth of a clerk — 
Cassim Baba, in the robber’s cave — and Cassim is the only 
respectable member of the party.” 

“ I am one by myself, one,” said Mortimer, “ high up an 
awful staircase commanding a burial-ground, and I have a 
whole clerk to myself, and he has nothing to do but look at 
the burial-ground, and what he will turn out when arrived at 
maturity, I cannot conceive. Whether, in that shabby rook’s 
nest, he is always plotting wisdom, or plotting murder; 
whether he will grow up, after so much solitary brooding, to 
enlighten his fellow-creatures, or to poison them; is the only 
speck of interest that presents itself to my professional view. 
Will you give me a light? Thank you.” 

“ Then idiots talk,” said Eugene, leaning back, folding his 
arms, smoking with his eyes shut, and speaking slightly 
through his nose, “ of Energy. If there is a word in the 
dictionary under any letter from A to Z that I abominate, 
it is energy. It is such a conventional superstition, such 


ANOTHER MAN 


23 


parrot gabble! What the deuce! Am I to rush out into 
the street, collar the first man of a wealthy appearance that 
I meet, shake him, and say, ‘ Go to law upon the spot, you 
dog, and retain me, or Fll be the death of you ? * Yet that 
would be energy.” 

“ Precisely my view of the case, Eugene. But show me a 
good opportunity, show me something really worth being 
energetic about, and I’ll show you energy.” 

“ And so will I,” said Eugene. 

And it is likely enough that ten thousand other young 
men, within the limits of the London Post-office town- 
delivery, made the same hopeful remark in the course of the 
same evening. 

. The wheels rolled on, and rolled down by the Monument, 
and by the Tower, and by the Docks; down by Ratcliffe, 
and by Rotherhithe; down by where accumulated scum of 
humanity seemed to be washed from higher grounds, like so 
much moral sewage, and to be pausing until its own weight 
forced it over the bank and sunk it in the river. In and 
out among vessels that seemed to have got ashore, and 
houses that seemed to have got afloat — among bowsprits 
staring into windows, and windows staring into ships — the 
wheels rolled on, until they stopped at a dark corner, river- 
washed and otherwise not washed at all, where the boy 
alighted and opened the door. 

“ You must walk the rest, sir; it’s not many yards.” He 
spoke in the singular number, to the express exclusion of 
Eugene. 

“ This is a confoundedly out-of-the-way place,” said 
Mortimer, slipping over the stones and refuse on the shore, 
as the boy turned the corner sharp. 

“ Here’s my father’s, sir; where the light is.” 

The low building had the look of having once been a mill. 
There was a rotten wart of wood upon its forehead that 
seemed to indicate where the sails had been, but the whole 
was very indistinctly seen in the obscurity of the night. The 
boy lifted the latch of the door, and they passed at once into 
a low circular room, where a man stood before a red fire, 
looking down into it, and a girl sat engaged in needlework. 
The fire was in a rusty brazier, not fitted to the hearth; and 


24 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


a common lamp, shaped like a hyacinth-root, smoked and 
flared in the neck of a stone bottle on the table. There was 
a wooden bunk or berth in a corner, and in another corner 
a wooden stair leading above — so clumsy and steep that it 
was little better than a ladder. Two or three old sculls and 
oars stood against the wall, and against another part of the 
wall was a small dresser, making a spare show of the common- 
est artieles of crockery and cooking-vessels. The roof of the 
room was not plastered, but was formed of the flooring of 
the room above. This, being very old, knotted, seamed, and 
beamed, gave a lowering aspect to the chamber; and roof, 
and walls, and floor, alike abounding in old smears of flour, 
red-lead (or some sueh stain which it had probably acquired 
in warehousing), and damp, alike had a look of decomposi- 
tion. 

“ The gentleman, father.” 

The figure at the red fire turned, raised its ruffled head, 
and looked like a bird of prey. 

“You’re Mortimer Lightwood, Esquire; are you, sir?” 

“ Mortimer Lightwood is my name. What you found,” 
said Mortimer, glancing rather shrinkingly towards the bunk; 
“is it here ? ” 

“ ’Tain't not to say here, but it’s close by. I do every- 
thing reg’lar. I’ve giv’ notice of the circumstarnce to the 
poliee, and the police have took possession of it. No time 
ain’t been lost, on any hand. The police have put it 
into print already, and here’s what the print says of 
it.” 

Taking up the bottle with the lamp in it, he held it near 
a paper on the wall, with the poliee heading. Body Found. 
The two friends read the handbill as it stuck against the wall, 
and Gaffer read them as he held the light. 

“ Only papers on the unfortunate man, I see,” said Light- 
wood, glancing from the description of what was found, to 
the finder. 

“ Only papers.” 

Here the girl arose with her work in her hand, and went 
out at the door. 

“ No money,” pursued Mortimer; “ but threepence in one 
of the skirt-pockets.” 


ANOTHER MAN 


25 


“ Three. Penny. Pieces,” said Gaffer Hexam, in as many 
sentences. 

“ The trousers pockets empty, and turned inside out.” 

Gaffer Hexam nodded. “ But that’s common. Whether 
it’s the wash of the tide or no, I can’t say. Now, here,’^ 
moving the light to another similar placard, “ his pockets was 
found empty, and turned inside out. And here,” moving the 
light to another, “ her pocket was found empty, and turned 
inside out. And so was this one’s. And so was that one’s. 
I can’t read, nor I don’t want to it, for I know ’em by their 
places on the wall. This one was a sailor, with two anchors 
and a flag and G. F. T. on his arm. Look and see if he warn’t.” 

Quite right.” 

“ This one was the young woman in gray boots, and her 
linen marked with a cross. Look and see if she warn’t.” 

“ Quite right.” 

“ This is him as had a nasty cut over the eye. This is 
them two young sisters what tied themselves together with 
a handkecher. This is the drunken old chap, in a pair of 
list slippers and a nightcap, wot had offered — it afterwards 
come out — to make a hole in the water for a quartern of rum 
stood aforehand, and kept to his word for the first and last 
time in his life. They pretty well papers the room, you see; 
but I know ’em all. Pm scholar enough ! ” 

He waved the light over the whole, as if to typify the 
light of his scholarly intelligence, and then put it down 
on the table and stood behind it looking intently at his 
visitors. He had the special peculiarity of some birds of 
prey, that when he knitted his brow, his ruffled crest stood 
highest. 

“You did not find all these yourself; did you?” asked 
Eugene. 

To which the bird of prey slowly rejoined, “ And what 
might ymtr name be, now ? ” 

“This is my friend,” Mortimer Lightwood interposed; 
“ Mr. Eugene Wrayburn.” 

“Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, is it? And what might Mr. 
Eugene Wrayburn have asked of me ? ” 

“ I asked you, simply, if you found all these yourself? ” 

“ I answer you, simply, most on ’em.” 


26 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Do you suppose there has been much violence and rob- 
bery, beforehand, among these cases ? ” 

“ I don’t suppose at all about it,” returned Gaffer. I 
ain’t one of the supposing sort. If you’d got your living to 
haul out of the river every day of your life, you mightn’t be 
much given to supposing. Am I to show the way ? ” 

As he opened the door, in pursuance of a nod from Light- 
wood, an extremely pale and disturbed face appeared in the 
doorway — the face of a man much agitated. 

“ A body missing? ” asked Gaffer Hexam, stopping short; 
” or a body found ? Which ? ” 

“ I am lost I ” replied the man, in a hurried and an eager 
manner. 

“Lost?” 

“I — I — am a stranger, and don’t know the way. I — I 
— want to find the place where I can see what is described 
here. It is possible I may know it.” He was panting, and 
could hardly speak; but, he showed a copy of the newly- 
printed bill that was still wet upon the wall. Perhaps its 
iiewness, or perhaps the accuracy of his observation of its 
general look, guided Gaffer to a ready conclusion. 

“ This gentleman, Mr. Lightwood, is on that business.” 

“ Mr. Lightw^ood ? ” 

During a pause, Mortimer and the stranger confronted 
each other. Neither knew the other. 

• “ I think, sir,” said Mortimer, breaking the awkward silence 
with his airy self-possession, “ that you did me the honour 
to mention my name ? ” 

“ I repeated it after this man.” 

“ You said you were a stranger in London ? ” 

“ An utter stranger.” 

“ Are you seeking a hlr. Harmon ? ” 

' No.” 

“ Then I believe I can assure you that you are on a fruit- 
less errand, and will not find what you fear to find. Will 
you come with us ? ” 

A little winding through some muddy alleys that might 
have been deposited by the jast ill-savoured tide, brought 
them to the wicket-gate and bright lamp of a Police Station; 
where they found the Night-Inspector, with a pen and ink, 


ANOTHER MAN 


27 


and ruler, posting up his books in a whitewashed office, as 
studiously as if he were in a monastery on the top of a moun- 
tain, and no howling fury of a drunken woman were banging 
herself against a cell-door in the back-yard at his elbow. 
With the same air of a recluse much given to study, he de- 
sisted from his books to bestow a distrustful nod of recog- 
nition upon Gaffer, plainly importing, “Ah! we know all 
about you, and you’ll overdo it some day; ’’and to inform 
Mr. Mortimer Lightwood and friends, that he would attend 
them immediately. Then, he finished ruling the work he 
had in hand (it might have been illuminating a missal, he 
was so calm), in a very neat and methodical manner, showing 
not the slightest consciousness of the woman who was banging 
herself with increased violence, and shrieking most terrifically 
for some other woman’s liver. 

“ A bull’s-eye,” said the Night-Inspector, taking up his 
keys. Which a deferential satellite produced. “ Now, 
gentlemen.” 

With one of his keys, he opened a cool grot at the end of 
the yard, and they all went in. They quickly came out 
again, no one speaking but Eugene ; who remarked to Morti- 
mer, in a whisper, “ Not much worse than Lady Tippins.” 

So back to the whitewashed library of the monastery — 
with that liver still in shrieking requisition, as it had been 
loudly, while they looked at the silent sight they came to 
see — and there through the merits of the case as summed up 
by the Abbot. No clue to how body came into river. Very 
often was no clue. Too late to know for certain, whether 
injuries received before or after death; one excellent surgical 
opinion said, before; other excellent surgical opinion said, 
after. Steward of ship in which gentleman came home 
passenger, had been round to view, and could swear to 
identity. Likewise could swear to clothes. And then, you 
see, you had the papers, too. How was it he had totally 
disappeared on leaving ship, till found in river? Well! 
Probably had been upon some little game. Probably thought 
it a harmless game, wasp’t up to things, and it turned out 
a fatal game. Inquest to-morrow, and no doubt open ver- 
dict. 

“ It appears to have knocked your friend over — knocked 


28 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


him completely off his legs,” Mr. Inspector remarked, when 
he had finished his summing up. “ It has given him a bad 
turn to be sure! ” This was said in a very low voice, and 
with a searching look (not the first he had cast) at the stranger. 

Mr. Lightwood explained that it was no friend of his. 

“Indeed?” said Mr. Inspector, with an attentive ear; 
“ where did you pick him up? ” 

Mr. Lightwood explained further. 

Mr. Inspector had delivered his summing up, and had 
added these words, with his elbows leaning on 'his desk, and 
the fingers and thumb of his right hand, fitting themselves 
to the fingers and thumb of his left. Mr. Inspector moved 
nothing but his eyes, as he now added, raising his voice: 

“ Turned you faint, sir! Seems you’re not accustomed to 
this kind of work ? ” 

The stranger, who was leaning against the chimneypiece 
with drooping head, looked round and answered, 

“ No. It’s a horrible sight! ” 

“ You expected to identify, I am told, sir? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Have you identified? ” 

“ No. It’s a horrible sight. O ! a horrible, horrible sight! ” 

“Who did you think it might have been?” asked Mr. 
Inspector. “ Give us a description, sir. Perhaps we can help 
you.” 

“ No, no,” said the stranger; “ it would be quite useless. 
Good night.” 

Mr. Inspector had not moved, and had given no order; 
but, the satellite slipped his back against the wicket, and 
laid his left arm along the top of it, and with his right hand 
turned the bull’s-eye he had taken from his chief — in 
quite a casual manner — towards the stranger. 

“You missed a friend, you know; or you missed a foe, you 
know; or you wouldn’t have come here, you know. Well, 
then; ain’t it reasonable to ask, who was it?” Thus, Mr. 
Inspector. 

“ You must excuse my telling you. No class of man can 
understand better than you, that families may not choose to 
publish their disagreements and misfortunes, except on the 
last necessity. I do not dispute that you discharge your 


ANOTHER MAN 29 

duty in a^sking me the question; you will not dispute my 
right to withhold the answer. Good night.” 

Again he turned towards the wicket, where the satellite, 
with his eye upon his chief, remained a dumb statue. 

“At least,” said Mr. Inspector, “you will not object to 
leave me your card, sir? ” 

“ I should not object, if I had one; but I have not.” He 
reddened and was much confused as he gave the answer. 

“ At least,” said Mr. Inspector, with no change of voice or 
manner, “ you will not object to write down your name and 
address ? ” 

“ Not at all.” 

Mr. Inspector dipped a pen in his inkstand, and deftly laid 
it on a piece of paper close beside him; then resumed his 
former attitude. The stranger stepped up to the desk, and 
wrote in a rather tremulous hand — Mr. Inspector taking 
side-long note of every hair of his head when it was bent down 
for the purpose — “ Mr. Julius Handford, Exchequer Coffee 
House, Palace Yard, Westminster.” 

“ Staying there, I presume, sir? ” 

“ Staying there.” 

“ Consequently, from the country? ” 

“ Eh ? Yes — from the country.” 

“ Good night, sir.” 

The satellite removed his arm and opened the wicket, and 
Mr. Julius Handford went out. 

“ Reserve! ” said Mr. Inspector. “ Take care of this piece 
of paper, keep him in view without giving offence, ascertain 
that he is staying there, and find out anything you can about 
him.” 

The satellite was gone; and Mr. Inspector becoming once 
again the quiet Abbot of that Monastery, dipped his pen in 
his ink and resumed his books. The two friends who had 
watched him, more amused by the professional manner than 
suspicious of Mr. Julius Handford, inquired before taking 
their departure too whether he believed there was anything 
that really looked bad here? 

The Abbot replied with reticence, “ couldn’t say. If a 
murder, anybody might have done it. Burglary or pocket- 
picking wanted ’prenticeship. Not so murder. We were all 


30 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


of US up to that. Had seen scores of people come to identify, 
and never saw one person struck in that particular way. 
Might, however, have been Stomach and not Mind. If so, 
rum stomach. But to be sure there were rum every things. 
Pity there was not a word of truth in that superstition about 
bodies bleeding when touched by the hand of the right 
person; you never got a sign out of bodies. You got row 
enough out of such as her — she was good for all night now ” 
(referring here to the banging demands of the liver), “ but 
you got nothing out of bodies if it was ever so.” 

There being nothing more to be done until the inquest 
was held next day, the friends went away together, and 
Gaffer Hexam and his son went their separate way. But, 
arriving at the last corner. Gaffer bade his boy go home 
while he turned into a red-curtained tavern, that stood drop- 
sically bulging over the causeway, “ for a half-a-pint.” 

The boy lifted the latch he had lifted before, and found 
his sister again seated before the fire at her work. Who 
raised her head upon his coming in and asking: 

“ Where did you go, Liz? ” 

“ I went out in the dark.” 

“ There was no necessity for that. It was all right enough.” 

“ One of the gentlemen, the one who didn’t speak while I 
was there, looked hard at me. And I was afraid he might 
know what my face meant. But there! Don’t mind me, 
Charley! I was all in a tremble of another sort when you 
owned to father you could write a little.” 

“Ah! But I made believe I wrote so badly, as that it 
was odds if any one could read it. And when I wrote slowest 
and smeared out with my finger most, father was best pleased, 
as he stood looking over me.” 

The girl put aside her work, and drawing her seat close to 
his seat by the fire, laid her arm gently on his shoulder. 

“You’ll make the most of your time, Charley; won’t 
you?” 

“Won’t I? Come! I like that. Don’t I?” 

“Yes, Charley, yes. You work hard at your learning, I 
know. And I work a little, Charley, and plan and contrive 
a little (wake out of my sleep contriving sometimes), how to 
get together a shilling now, and a shilling then, that shall 


ANOTHER MAN 


31 


make father believe you are beginning to earn a stray living 
along-shore.” 

“You are father’s favourite, and can make him believe 
anything.” 

“ 1 wish I could, Charley! For if I could make him believe 
that learning, was a good thing, and that we might lead 
better lives, I should be a’most content to die.” 

“ Don’t talk stuff about dying, Liz.” 

She placed her hands in one another on his shoulder, and 
laying her rich brown cheek against them as she looked down 
at the fire, went on thoughtfully: 

“ Of an evening, Charley, when you are at the school, and 
father’s ” 

“ At the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters,” the boy struck in, 
with a backward nod of his head towards the ])ublic-house. 

Yes. Then as I sit a-looking at the fire, I seem to see 
in the burning coal — like where that glow is now ” 

“ That’s gas, that is,” said the boy, “ coming out of a bit 
of a forest that’s been under the mud that was under the 
water in the days of Noah’s Ark. Look here! When I take 
the poker — so — and give it a dig ” 

“ Don’t disturb it, Charley, or it’ll be all in a blaze. It’s 
that dull glow near it, coming and going, that I mean. When 
I look at it of an evening, it comes like pictures to me, Charley.” 

“ Show us a picture,” said the boy. “ Tell us where to 
look.” 

“ Ah! It wants my eyes, Charley.” 

“ Cut away then, and tell us what your eyes make of it.” 

“ Why, there are you and me, Charley, when you were 
quite a baby that never knew a mother ” 

“ Don’t go saying I never knew a mother,” interposed the 
boy, “ for I knew a little sister that was sister and mother 
both.” 

The girl laughed delightedly, and her eyes filled with 
pleasant tears, as he put both his arms round her waist and 
so held her. 

“ There are you and me, Charley, when father was away 
at work and locked us out, for fear we should set ourselves 
afire or fall out of window, sitting on the door-sill, sitting 
on other door-steps, sitting on the bank of the river, wandering 


32 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


about to get through the time. You are rather heavy to 
carry, Charley, and I’m often obliged to rest. Sometimes we 
are sleepy and fall asleep together in a corner, sometimes we 
are very hungry, sometimes we are a little frightened, but 
what is oftenest hard upon us is the cold. You remember, 
Charley ? ” 

“ I remember,” said the boy, pressing her to him twice or 
thrice, “ that I snuggled under a little shawl, and it was 
warm there.” • 

“ Sometimes it rains, and we creep under a boat or the like 
of that; sometimes it’s dark, and we get among the gaslights, 
sitting watching the people as they go along the streets. At 
last, up comes father and takes us home. And home seems 
such a shelter after out of doors! And father pulls my shoes 
off, and dries my feet at the fire, and has me to sit by him 
while he smokes his pipe long after you are abed, and I 
notice that father’s is a large hand but never a heavy one 
when it touches me, and that father’s is a rough voice but 
never an angry one when it speaks to me. So, I grow up, 
and little by little father trusts me, and makes me his com- 
panion, and, let him be put out as he may, never once strikes 
me.” 

The listening boy gave a grunt here, as much as to say, 
“But he strikes me though! ” 

“ Those are some of the pictures of what is past, Charley.” 

“ Cut away again,” said the boy, “ and give us a fortune- 
telling one; a future one.” 

“ Well! There am I, continuing with father, and holding 
to father, because father loves me, and I love father. I can’t 
so much as read a book, because, if I had learned, father 
would have thought I was deserting him, and I should have 
lost my influence. I have not the influence I want to have, 

I cannot stop some dreadful things I try to stop, but I go 
on in the hope and trust that the time will come. In the 
meanwhile I know that I am in some things a stay to father, 
and that if I was not faithful to him he would — in revenge- 
like, or in disappointment, or both — go wild and bad.” 

“ Give us a touch of the fortune-telling pictures about me.” 

“ I was passing on to them, Charley,” said the girl, who 
had not changed her attitude since she began, and who now 


ANOTHER MAN 33 

mournfully shook her head; “ the others were all leading up. 
There are you ” 

“ Where am I, Liz? ” 

“ Still in the hollow down by the flare.*’ 

“ There seems to be the deuce-and-all in the hollow down 
by the flare,” said the boy, glancing from her eyes to the 
brazier, which had a grisly skeleton look on its long thin legs. 

“ There are you, Charley, working your way, in secret from 
father, at the school; and you get prizes; and you go on 
better and better; and you come to be a — what was it you 
called it when you told me about that? ” . 

“ Ha, ha! Fortune- telling not know the name! ” cried the 
boy, seeming to be rather relieved by this default on the 
part of the hollow down by the flare. “ Pupil-teacher.” 

“You come to be a pupil-teacher, and you still go on 
better and better, and you rise to be a master full of learning 
and respect. But the secret has come to father’s knowledge 
long before, and it has divided you from father, and from me.” 

“ No it hasn’t! ” 

“ Yes it has, Charley. I see, as plain as plain can be, that 
your way is not ours, and that even if father could be got 
to forgive your taking it (which he never could be), that way 
of yours would be darkened by our way. But I see too, 
Charley ” 

“Still as plain as plain can be, Liz?” asked the boy 
playfully. 

“Ah! Still. That it is a great work to have cut your 
way from father’s life, and to have made a new and good 
beginning. So there am I, Charley, left alone with father, 
keeping him as straight as I can, watching for more influence 
than I have, and hoping that through some fortunate chance, 
or when he is ill, or when — I don’t know what — I may turn 
him to wish to do better things.” 

“You said you couldn’t read a book, Lizzie. Your library 
of books is the hollow down by the flare, I think.” 

“ I should be very glad to be able to read real books. I 
feel my want of learning very much, Charley. But I should 
feel it much more, if I didn’t know it to be a tie between me 
and father. — Hark! Father’s tread! ” 

It being now past midnight, the bird of prey went straight 


34 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


to roost. At mid-day following he reappeared at the Six 
Jolly Fellowship-Porters, in the character, not new to him, 
of a witness before a Coroner’s Jury. 

Mr. Mortimer Lightwood, besides sustaining the character 
of one of the witnesses, doubled the part with that of the 
eminent solicitor who watched the proceedings on behalf of 
the representatives of the deceased, as was duly recorded in 
the newspapers. Mr. Inspector watched the proceedings 
too, and kept his watching closely to himself. Mr. Julius 
Handford having given his right address, and being reported 
in solvent circumstances as to his bill, though nothing more 
was known of him at his hotel except that his way of life 
was very retired, had no summons to appear, and was merely 
present in the shades of Mr. Inspector’s mind. 

The case was made interesting to the public, by Mr. 
Mortimer Lightwood’s evidence touching the circumstances 
under which the deceased, Mr. John Harmon, had returned 
to England ; exclusive private proprietorship in which circum- 
stances was set up at dinner-tables for several days, by 
Veneering, Twemlow, Podsnap, and all the Buffers: who all 
related them irreconcilably with one another, and contradicted 
themselves. It was also made interesting by the testimony 
of Job Potterson, the ship’s steward, and one Mr. Jacob 
Kibble, a fellow-passenger, that the deceased Mr. John 
Harmon did bring over, in a hand-valise with which he did 
disembark, the sum realised by the forced sale of his little 
landed property, and that the sum exceeded, in ready money, 
seven hundred pounds. It was further made interesting, by 
the remarkable experiences of Jesse Hexam in having rescued 
from the Thames so many dead bodies, and for whose behoof 
a rapturous admirer subscribing himself “ A Friend to Burial ” 
(perhaps an undertaker), sent eighteen postage stamps, and 
five “Now Sir ”s to the editor of the Times. 

Upon the evidence adduced before them, the Jury found. 
That the body of Mr. John Harmon had been discovered 
floating in the Thames, in an advanced state of decay, and 
much injured; and that the said Mr. John Harmon had 
come by his death under highly suspicious circumstances, 
though by whose act or in what precise manner there was 
no evidence before this Jury to show. And they appended 


ANOTHER MAN 


35 


to their verdict, a recommendation to the Home Office (which 
Mr. Inspector appeared to think highly sensible), to offer a 
reward for the solution of the mystery. Within eight-and- 
forty hours, a reward of One Hundred Pounds was pro- 
claimed, together with a free pardon to any person or persons 
not the actual perpetrator or perpetrators, and so forth in 
due form. 

This Proclamation rendered Mr. Inspector additionally 
studious, and caused him to stand meditating on river-stairs 
and causeways, and to go lurking about in boats, putting 
this and that together. But, according to the success with 
which you put this and that together, you get a woman and 
a fish apart, or a Mermaid in combination. And Mr. In- 
spector could turn out nothing better than a Mermaid, which 
no Judge and Jury would believe in. 

Thus, like the tides on which it had been borne to the 
knowledge of men, the Harmon Murder — as it came to be 
popularly called — went up and down, and ebbed and flowed, 
now in the town, now in the country, now among palaces, 
now among hovels, now among lords and ladies and gentle- 
folks, now among labourers and hammerers and ballast- 
heavers, until at last, after a long interval of slack water, it 
got out to sea and drifted away. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE R. WILFER FAJMILT 

Reginald Wilfer is a name with rather a grand sound, 
suggesting on first acquaintance brasses in country churches, 
scrolls in stained-glass windows, and generally the De Wilfers 
who came over with the Conqueror. For, it is a remarkable 
fact in genealogy that no De Any ones ever came over 
with Anybody else. 

But, the Reginald Wilfer family were of such common- 
place extraction and pursuits that their forefathers had for 
generations modestly subsisted on the Docks, the Excise 
Office, and the Custom House, and the existing R. Wilfer was a 
poor clerk. So poor a clerk, through having a limited salary 
and an unlimited family, that he had never yet attained the 
modest object of his ambition : which was, to w^ar a complete 
new suit of clothes, hats and boots included, at one time. 
His black hat was brown before he could afford a coat, his 
pantaloons were white at the seams and knees before he 
could buy a pair of boots, his boots had worn out before 
he could treat himself to new pantaloons, and by the time 
he worked round to the hat again, that shining modern 
article roofed-in an ancient ruin of various periods. 

If the conventional Cherub could ever grow up and be 
clothed, he might be photographed as a portrait of Wilfer. 
His chubby, smooth, innocent appearance was a reason for his 
being always treated with condescension when he was not put 
down. A stranger entering his own poor house at about ten 
o’clock P.M. might have been surprised to find him sitting up 
to supper. So boyish \yas he in his curves and proportions, 
that his old schoolmaster meeting him in Cheapside, might 
have been unable to withstand the temptation of caning him 
on the spot. In short, he was the conventional cherub, after 


THE R. WILFER FAMILY 


37 


the supposititious shoot just mentioned, rather gray, with 
signs of care on his expression, and in decidedly insolvent 
circumstances. 

He was shy, and unwilling to own to the name of Reginald, 
as being too aspiring and self-assertive a name. In his sig- 
nature he used only the initial R., and imparted what it 
really stood for, to none but chosen friends, under the seal 
of confidence. Out of this, the facetious habit had arisen in 
the neighbourhood surrounding Mincing Lane of making 
Christian names for him of adjectives and participles begin- 
ning with R. Some of these were more or less appropriate: 
as Rusty, Retiring, Ruddy, Round, Ripe, Ridiculous, Rumi- 
native; others derived their point from their want of applica- 
tion: as Raging, Rattling, Roaring, Raffish. But, his popu- 
lar name was Rumty, which in a moment of inspiration had 
been bestowed upon him by a gentleman of convivial habits 
connected with the drug market, as the beginning of a social 
chorus, his leading part in the execution of which had led 
this gentleman to the Temple of Fame, and of which the 
whole expressive burden ran : 

** Rumty iddity, row dow dow. 

Sing toodlely, teedlely, bow wow wow.” 

Thus he was constantly addressed, even in minor notes on 
business, as “ Dear Rumty; ” in answer to which, he sedately 
signed himself, “ Yours truly, R. Wilfer.” 

He was clerk in the drug-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and 
Stobbles. Chicksey and Stobbles, his former masters, had 
both become absorbed in Veneering, once their traveller or 
commission agent: who had signalised his accession to 
supreme power by bringing into the business a quantity of 
plate-glass window and French-polished mahogany partition, 
and a gleaming and enormous door-plate. 

R. Wilfer locked up his desk one evening, and putting his 
bunch of keys in his pocket much as if it were his peg-top, 
made for home. His home was in the Holloway region north 
of London, and then divided from it by fields and trees. 
Between Battle Bridge and that part of the Holloway district 
in which he dwelt, was a tract of suburban Sahara, where 
tiles and bricks were burnt, bones were boiled, carpets were 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


beat, rubbish was shot, dogs were fought, and dust was heaped 
by contractors. Skirting the border of this desert, by the 
way he took, when the light of its kiln-fires made lurid smears 
on the fog, R. Wilfer sighed and shook his head. 

“ Ah. me! ” said he, “ what might have been is not what 
ls\” 

With which commentary on human life, indicating an 
sxperience of it not exclusively his own, he made the best of 
his way to the end of his journey. 

Mrs. Wilfer was, of course, a tall woman and an angular. 
Her lord being cherubic, she was necessarily majestic, accord- 
ing to the principle which matrimonially unites contrasts. 
She was much given to tying up her head in a pocket-hand- 
kerchief, knotted under the chin. This head-gear, in con- 
junction with a pair of gloves worn within doors, she seemed 
to consider as at once a kind of armour against misfortune 
(invariably assuming it when in low spirits or difficulties), and 
as a species of full dress. It was therefore with some sinkim^ 
of the spirit that her husband beheld her thu^ heroically 
attired, putting down her candle in the little hall, and coming 
down the doorsteps through the little front court to open the 
gate for him. 

Something had gone wrong with the house-door, for R. 
Wilfer stopped on the steps, staring at it, and cried: 

“ Hal— loa?” 

Yes,” said Mrs. Wilfer, “ the man came himself with a 
pair of pincers, and took it off, and took it away. He said 
that as he had no expectation of ever being paid for it, and 
as he had an order for another Ladies’ School door-plate, it 
was better (burnished up) for the interests of all parties.” 

“ Perhaps it was, my dear; what do you think? ” 

“ You are master here, R. W.,” returned his wife. “ It is 
as you think; not as I do. Perhaps it might have been 
better if the man had taken the door too.” 

My dear, we couldn’t have done without the door.” 

“ Couldn’t we?” 

“ Why, my dear! Could we? ” 

“ It is as you think, R. W. ; not as I do.” With those 
submissive words, the dutiful wife preceded him down a few 
stairs to a little basement front room, half kitchen, half 


THE R. WILFER FAMILY 


39 


parlour, where a girl of about nineteen, with an exceedingly 
pretty figure and face, but with an impatient and petulant 
expression both in her face and in her shoulders (which in her 
sex and at her age are very expressive of discontent), sat 
playing draughts with a younger girl, who was the youngest 
of the House of Wilfer. Not to encumber this page by 
telling off the Wilfers in detail and casting them up in the 
gross, it is enough for the present that the rest were what is 
called “ out in the world,” in various ways, and that they 
were Many. So many, that when one of his dutiful children 
called in to see him, R. Wilfer generally seemed to say to 
himself, after a little mental arithmetic, “ Oh! here’s another 
of ’em! ” before adding aloud, “ How de do, John,” or Susan, 
as the case might be. 

“ Well, Piggywiggies,” said R. W., how de do to-night? 
What I was thinking of, my dear,” to Mrs. Wilfer already 
seated in a corner with folded gloves, was, that as we have 
let our first floor so well, and as we have now no place in 
which you could teach pupils, even if pupils ” 

“ The milkman said he knew of two young ladies of the 
highest respectability who were in search of a suitable es- 
tablishment, and he took a card,” interposed Mrs. Wilfer, 
with severe monotony, as if she were reading an Act of Parlia- 
ment aloud. “ Tell your father whether it was last Monday, 
Bella.” 

“ But we never heard any more of it, ma,”‘said Bella, the 
elder girl. 

“ In addition to which, my dear,” her husband urged, if 
you have no place to put two young persons into ” 

“ Pardon me,” Mrs. Wilfer again interposed; “ they were 
not young persons. Two young ladies of the highest respecta- 
bility. Tell your father, Bella, whether the milkman said so.” 

“ My dear, it is the same thing.” 

“ No it is not,” said Mrs. Wilfer, with the same impressive 
monotony. “Pardon me!” 

“ I mean, my dear, it is the same thing as to space. As 
to space. If you have no space in which to put two youthful 
fellow-creatures, however eminently respectable, which I do 
not doubt, where are those youthful fellow-creatures to be 
accommodated ? I carry it no further than that. And solely 


40 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


looking at it/* said her husband, making the stipulation at 
once in a conciliatory, complimentary, and argumentative 
tone — “as I am sure you will agree, my love — from a 
fellow-creature point of view, my dear/’ 

“ I have nothing more to say,” returned IVIrs. Wilfer, with 
a meek renunciatory action of her gloves. “It is as you 
think, R. W. ; not as I do.” 

Here, the huffing of Miss Bella and the loss of three of 
her men at a swoop, aggravated by the coronation of an 
opponent, led to that young lady’s jerking the draught-board 
and pieces off the table: which her sister went down on her 
knees to pick up. 

“ Poor Bella! ” said Mrs. Wilfer. 

“ And poor Lavinia, perhaps, my dear? ” suggested R. W. 

“Pardon. me,” said Mrs. Wilfer, “no!” 

It was one of the worthy woman’s specialities that she had 
an amazing power of gratifying her splenetic or worldly- 
minded humours by extolling her own family : which she thus 
proceeded, in the present case, to do. 

“ No, R. W. Lavinia has not known the trial that Bella 
has known. The trial that your daughter Bella has under- 
gone, is, perhaps, without a parallel, and has been borne, I 
will say. Nobly. When you see your daughter Bella in her 
black dress, which she alone of all the family wears, and 
when you remember the circumstances which have led to her 
wearing it, and when you know how those circumstances 
have been sustained, then, R. W., lay your head upon your 
pillow and say, ‘ Poor Lavinia! ’ ” 

Here, Miss I>avinia, from her kneeling situation under the 
table, put in that she didn’t want to be “ poored by pa,” or 
anybody else. 

“ I am sure you do not, my dear,” returned her mother, 
“ for you have a fine brave spirit. And your sister Cecilia has 
a fine brave spirit of another kind, a spirit of pure devotion, 
a beau-ti-ful spirit! The self-sacrifice of Cecilia reveals a 
pure and womanly character, very seldom equalled, never sur- 
passed. I have now in my pocket a letter from your sister 
Cecilia, received this morning — received three months after 
her marriage, poor child ! — in which she tells me that her 
husband must unexpectedly shelter under their roof his 


THE R. WILFER FAMILY 


41 


reduced aunt. ‘ But I will be true to him, mama,* she 
touchingly writes, ‘ I will not leave him, I must not forget 
that he is my husband. Let his aunt come! * If this is not 

pathetic, if this is not woman*s devotion I ’* The good 

lady waved her gloves in a sense of the impossibility of 
saying more, and tied the pocket-handkerchief over her head 
in a tighter knot under her chin. 

Bella, who was now seated on the rug to warm herself, 
with her brown eyes on the fire and a handful of her brown 
curls in her mouth, laughed at this, and then pouted and 
half cried. 

“ I am sure,** said she, ‘‘ though you have no feeling for 
me, pa, I am one of the most unfortunate girls that ever 
lived. You know how poor we are ** (it is probable he did, 
having some reason to know it!), “ and what a glimpse of 
wealth I had, and how it melted away, and how I am here in 
this ridiculous mourning — which I hate ! — a kind of a 
widow who never was married. And yet you don’t feel for 
me. — • Yes you do, yes you do.’* 

This abrupt change was occasioned by her father’s face. 
She stopped to pull him down from his chair in an attitude 
highly favourable to strangulation, and to give him a kiss 
and a pat or two on the cheek. 

“ But you ought to feel for me, you know, pa.” 

“ My dear, I do.” 

“ Yes, and I say you ought to. If they had only left me 
alone and told me nothing about it, it would have mattered 
much less. But that nasty Mr. Lightwood feels it his duty, 
as he says, to write and tell me what is in reserve for me, 
and then I am obliged to get rid of George Sampson.” 

Here Lavinia, rising to the surface with the last draught- 
man rescued, interposed, “You never cared for George 
Sampson, Bella.” 

“ And did I say I did, miss ? ** Then, pouting again, with 
the curls in her mouth: “ George Sampson was very fond of 
me, and admired me very much, and put up with everything 
I did to him.” 

“You were rude enough to him,” Lavinia again inter- 
posed. 

“And did I say I wasn’t, miss? I am not setting up to 


42 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


be sentimental about George Sampson. I only say George 
Sampson was better than nothing.’^ 

You didn’t show him that you thought even that,” 
Lavinia again interposed. 

‘‘ You are a chit and a little idiot,” returned Bella, or 
you wouldn’t make such a dolly speech. What did you 
expect me to do? Wait till you are a woman, and don’t 
talk about what you don’t understand. You only show your 
ignorance ! ” Then whimpering again, and at intervals biting 
the curls, and stopping to look how much was bitten off, 
“It’s a shame! There never was such a hard case! I 
shouldn’t care so much if it wasn’t so ridiculous. It was 
ridiculous enough to have a stranger coming over to marry 
me, whether he liked it or not. It was ridiculous enough to 
know what an embarrassing meeting it would be, and how we 
never could pretend to have an inclination of our own, either 
of us. It was ridiculous enough to know I shouldn’t like 
him — how could I like him, left to him in a will, like a 
dozen of spoons, with everything cut and dried beforehand, 
like orange chips ? Talk of orange flowers indeed! I declare 
again it’s a shame! Those ridiculous points would have 
been smoothed away by the money, for I love money, and 
want money — want it dreadfully. I hate to be poor, and 
we are degradingly poor, offensively poor, miserably poor, 
beastly poor. But here I am, left with all the ridiculous 
parts of the situation remaining, and added to them all, this 
ridiculous dress! And if the truth was known, when the 
Harmon murder was all over the town, and people were 
speculating on its being suicide, I dare say those impudent 
wretches at the clubs and places made jokes about the 
miserable creature’s having preferred a watery grave to me. 
Its likely enough they took such liberties; I shouldn’t won- 
der! I declare it’s a very hard case indeed, and I am a 
most unfortunate girl. The idea of being a kind of widow, 
and never having been married ! And the idea of being as 
poor as ever after all, and going into black, besides, for a 
man I never saw, and should have hated — as far as he was 
concerned — if I had seen ! ” 

The young lady’s lamentations were choked at this point by 
a knuckle, knocking at the half-open door of the room. The 


THE R. WILFER FAMILY 


43 


knuckle had knocked two or three times already, but had not 
been heard. 

“ Who is it? ” said Mrs. Wilfer, in her Act-of-Parliament 
manner. “ Enter! ” 

A gentleman coming in, Miss Bella, with a short and sharp 
exclamation, scrambled off the hearth-rug and massed the 
bitten curls together in their right place on her neck. 

The servant girl had her key in the door as I came up, 
and directed me to this room, telling me I was expected. I 
am afraid I should have asked her to announce me.'’ 

“ Pardon me,” returned Mrs. Wilfer. “ Not at all. Two 
of my daughters. R. W., this is the gentleman who has 
taken your first-floor. He was so good as to make an appoint- 
ment for to-night, when you would be at home.” 

A dark gentleman. Thirty at the utmost. An expressive, 
one might say handsome, face. A very bad manner. In the 
last degree constrained, reserved, diffident, troubled. His 
eyes were on Miss Bella for an instant, and then looked at 
the ground as he addressed the master of the house. 

“ Seeing that I am quite satisfied, Mr. Wilfer, with the 
rooms, and with their situation, and with their price, I sup- 
pose ^ memorandum between us of two or three lines, and 
a payment down, will bind the bargain? I wish to send in 
furniture without delay.” 

Two or three times during this short address, the cherub 
addressed had made chubby motions towards a chair. The 
gentleman now took it, laying a hesitating hand on a corner 
of the table, and with another hesitating hand lifting the 
crown of his hat to his lips, and drawing it before his mouth. 

‘'The gentleman, R. said Mrs. W^ilfer, “proposes to 
take your apartments by the quarter. A quarter’s notice on 
either side.” 

“ Shall I mention, sir,” insinuated the landlord, expecting 
it to be received as a matter of course, “ the form of a refer- 
ence ? ” 

“ I think,” returned the gentleman, after a pause, “ that a 
reference is not necessary; ndther, to say the truth, is it 
convenient, for I am a stranger in London. I require no 
reference from you, and perhaps, therefore, you will require 
none from me. That will be fair on both sides. Indeed, 


44 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


I show the greater confidence of the two, for I will pay in 
advance whatever you please, and I am going to trust my 
furniture here. Whereas, if you were in embarrassed cir- 
cumstances — this is merely supposititious ” 

Conscience causing R. Wilfer to colour, Mrs. Wilfer, from 
a corner (she always got into stately corners) came to the 
rescue with a deep-toned “ Per-fectly/^ 

“ — Why then I — might lose it.’^ 

“Weill” observed R. Wilfer, cheerfully, “money and 
goods are certainly the best of references.” 

“ Do you think they are the best, pa ? ” asked Miss Bella, 
in a low voice, and without looking over her shoulder as she 
warmed her foot on the fender. 

“ Among the best, my dear.” 

“ I should have thought, myself, it was so easy to add the 
usual kind of one,” said Bella, with a toss of her curls. 

The gentleman listened to her, with a face of marked 
attention, though he neither looked up nor changed his atti- 
tude. He sat, still and silent, until his future landlord 
accepted his proposals, and brought writing materials to 
complete the business. He sat, still and silent, while the 
landlord wrote. ^ 

When the agreement was ready in duplicate (the landlord 
having worked at it like some cherubic scribe, in what is 
conventionally called a doubtful, which means a not at all 
doubtful, Old Master), it was signed by the contracting 
parties, Bella looking on as scornful witness. The contract- 
ing parties were R. Wilfer, and John Rokesmith, Esquire. 

When it came to Bella’s turn to sign her name, Mr. Roke- 
smith, who was standing, as he had sat, with a hesitating 
hand upon the table, looked at her stealthily, but narrowly. 
He looked at the pretty figure bending down over the paper 
and saying, “ Where am I to go, pa? Here, in this corner? ” 
He looked at the beautiful brown hair, shading the coquettish 
face; he looked at the free dash of the signature, which was 
a bold one for a woman’s; and then they looked at one an- 
other. 

“ Much obliged to you. Miss Wilfer.” 

“Obliged?” 

“ I have given you so much trouble.” 

















THE R. WILFER FAMILY 45 

Signing my name? Yes, certainly. But I am your 
landlord’s daughter, sir.” 

As there was nothing more to do but pay eight sovereigns 
in earnest of the bargain, pocket the agreement, appoint 
a time for the arrival of his furniture and himself, and go, 
Mr. Rokesmith did that as awkwardly as it might be done, 
and was escorted by his landlord to the outer air. When 
R. Wilfer returned, candlestick in hand, to the bosom of his 
family, he found the bosom agitated. 

“ Pa,” said Bella, “ we have got a Murderer for a tenant.” 

“ Pa,” said Lavinia, “ we have got a Robber.” 

“To see him unable for his life to look anybody in the 
face,” said Bella. “ There never was such an exhibition.” 

“ My dears,” said their father, “ he is a diffident gentleman, 
and I should say particularly so in the society of girls of 
your age.” 

“ Nonsense, our age! ” cried Bella, impatiently. “ What’s 
that got to do with him ? ” 

“ Besides, we are not of the same age: — which age ? ” de- 
manded Lavinia. 

“ Never you mind, Lavvy,” retorted Bella; “ you wait till 
you are of an age to ask such questions. Pa, mark my 
words! Between Mr. Rokesmith and me, there is a natural 
antipathy and a deep distrust; and something will come 
of it!” 

“ My dear, and girls,” said the cherub-patriarch, “ between 
Mr. Rokesmith and me, there is a matter of eight sovereigns, 
and something for supper shall come of it, if you’ll agree 
upon the article.” 

This was a neat and happy turn to give the subject, treats 
being rare in the Wilfer household, where a monotonous 
appearance of Dutch cheese at ten o’clock in the evening 
had been rather frequently commented on by the dimpled 
shoulders of Miss Bella. Indeed, the modest Dutchman 
himself seemed conscious of his want of variety, and generally 
came before the family in a state of apologetic perspiration. 
After some discussion on the relative merits of veal-cutlet, 
sweetbread, and lobster, a decision was pronounced in favour 
of veal-cutlet. Mrs. Wilfer then solemnly divested herself of 
her handkerchief and gloves, as a preliminary sacrifice to 


46 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


preparing the frying-pan, and R. W. himself went out to 
purchase the viand. He soon returned, bearing the same in 
a fresh cabbage-leaf, where it coyly embraced a rasher of 
ham. Melodious sounds were not long in rising from the 
frying-pan on the fire, or in seeming, as the firelight danced 
in the mellow halls of a couple of full bottles on the table, 
to play appropriate dance-music. 

The cloth was laid by Lavvy. Bella, as the acknowledged 
ornament of the family, employed both her hands in giving 
her hair an additional wave while sitting in the easiest chair, 
and occasionally threw in a direction touching the supper: 
as, “Very brown, ma;” or, to her sister, “Put the salt- 
cellar straight, miss, and don’t be a dowdy little puss.” 

Meanwhile her father, chinking Mr. Rokesmith’s gold as 
he sat expectant between his knife and fork, remarked that 
six of those sovereigns came just in time for their landlord, 
and stood them in a little pile on the white table-cloth to 
look at. 

“I hate our landlord!” said Bella. 

But observing a fall in her father’s face, she went and sat 
down by him at the table, and began touching up his hair 
with the handle of the fork. It was one of the girl’s spoilt 
ways to be always arranging the family’s hair ^r— perhaps 
because her own was so pretty, and occupied so much of her 
attention. 

“You deserve to have a house of your own; don’t you, 
poor pa ? ” 

“ I don’t deserve it better than another, my dear.” 

“ At any rate I, for one, want it more than another,” said 
Bella, holding him by the chin, as she stuck his flaxen hair 
on end, “ and I grudge this money going to the Monster that 
swallows up so much, when we all want — Everything. And 
if you say (as you want to say; I know you want to say so, 
pa) ‘ that’s neither reasonable nor honest, Bella,’ then I 
answer, ‘ Maybe not, pa — very likely — but it’s one of the 
consequences of being poor, and of thoroughly hating and 
detesting to be poor, and that’s my case.’ Now, you look 
lovely, pa; why don’t you always wear your hair like that? 
And here’s the cutlet! If it isn’t very brown, ma, I can’t eat 
it, and must have a bit put back to be done expressly.” 


THE R. WILFER FAMILY 


47 


However, as it was brown, even to Bella’s taste, the young 
lady graciously partook of it without reconsignment to the 
frying-pan, and also, in due course, of the contents of the 
two bottles: whereof one held Scotch ale and the other rum. 
The latter perfume, with the fostering aid of boiling water 
and lemon-peel, diffused itself throughout the room, and 
became so highly concentrated around the warm fireside, 
that the wind passing over the house-roof must have rushed 
off charged with a delicious whiff of it, after buzzing like 
a great bee at that particular chimney-pot. 

“ Pa,” said Bella, sipping the fragrant mixture and warm- 
ing her favourite ankle; “ when old Mr. Harmon made such 
a fool of me (not to mention himself as he is dead), what do 
you suppose he did it for? ” 

‘‘ Impossible to say, my dear. As I have told you times 
out of number since his will was brought to light, I doubt if 
I ever exchanged a hundred words with the old gentleman. 
If it was his whim to surprise us, his whim succeeded. For 
he certainly did it.” 

‘‘ And I was stamping my foot and screaming, when he 
first took notice of me ; was I ? ” said Bella, contemplating 
the ankle before mentioned. 

“You were stamping your little foot, my dear, and scream- 
ing with your little voice, and laying into me with your 
little bonnet, which you had snatched off for the purpose,” 
returned her father, as if the remembrance gave a relish to 
the rum; “you were doing this one Sunday morning when 
I took you out, because I didn’t go the exact way you wanted, 
when the old gentleman, sitting on a seat near, said, ‘ That’s 
a nice girl; that’s a very nice girl; promising girl! ’ And so 
you were, my dear.” 

“ And then he asked my name, did he, pa ? ” 

“ Then he asked your name, my dear, and mine; and on 
other Sunday mornings, when we walked his way, we saw 
him again, and — and really that’s all.” 

As that was all the rum and water, too, or, in other words, 
as R. W. delicately signified that his glass was empty by 
throwing back his head and standing the glass upside down 
on his nose and upper lip, it might have been charitable in 
Mrs. Wilfer to suggest replenishment. But that heroine 


48 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


briefly suggesting “ Bedtime ” instead, the bottles were 
put away, and the family retired; she cherubically escorted, 
like some severe saint in a painting, or merely human matron 
allegorically treated. 

“And by this time to-morrow,^’ said Lavinia when the 
two girls were alone in their room, “ we shall have Mr. 
Rokesmith here, and shall be expecting to have our throats 
cut.^^ 

“ You needn^t stand between me and the candle for all 
that,” retorted Bella. “ This is another of the consequences 
of being poor! The idea of a girl with a really fine head of 
hair, having to do it by one flat candle and a few inches of 
looking-glass 1 ” 

“ You caught George Sampson with it, Bella, bad as your 
means of dressing it are.” 

“You low little thing. Caught George Sampson with it! 
Don’t talk about catching people, miss, till your own time 
for catching — as you call it — comes.” 

“ Perhaps it has come,” muttered Lavvy, with a toss of 
her head. 

“ What did you say ? ” asked Bella, very sharply. “ What 
did you say, miss ? ” 

Lavvy declining equally to repeat or to explain, Bella 
gradually lapsed over her hair-dressing into a soliloquy on 
the miseries of being poor, as exemplified in having nothing 
to put on, nothing to go out in, nothing to dress by, only 
a nasty box to dress at instead of a commodious dressing- 
table, and being obliged to take in suspicious lodgers. On 
the last grievance as her climax she laid great stress — and 
might have laid greater, had she known that if Mr. Julius 
Handford had a twin brother upon earth, Mr. John Roke- 
smith was the man. 


CHAPTER V 


boffin’s bower 

Over against a London house, a corner house not far from 
Cavendish Square, a man with a wooden leg had sat for some 
years, with his remaining foot in a basket in cold weather, 
picking up a living on this wise : — Every morning at eight 
o’clock, he stumped to the corner, carrying a chair, a clothes- 
horse, a pair of trestles, a board, a basket, and an umbrella, 
all strapped together. Separating these, the board and 
trestles became a counter, the basket supplied the few small 
lots of fruit and sweets that he offered for sale upon it and 
became a foot-warmer, the unfolded clothes-horse displayed 
a choice collection of halfpenny ballads and became a screen, 
and the stool planted within it became his post for the rest 
of the day. All weathers saw the man at the post. This is 
to be accepted in a double sense, for he contrived a back to 
his wooden stool by placing it against the lamp-post. When 
the weather was wet, he put up his umbrella over his stock- 
in-trade, not over himself; when the weather was dry, he 
furled that faded article, tied it round with a piece of yarn, 
and laid it cross-wise under the trestles: where it looked like 
an unwholesomely-forced lettuce that had lost in colour and 
crispness what it had gained in size. 

He had established his right to the corner by imperceptible 
prescription. He had never varied his ground an inch, but 
had in the beginning diffidently taken the corner upon which 
the side of the house gave. A howling corner in the winter 
time, a dusty corner in the summer time, an undesirable 
corner at the best of times. Shelterless fragments of straw 
and paper got up revolving storms there, when the main 
street was at peace; and the water-cart, as if it were drunk 


50 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


or short-sighted, came blundering and jolting round it, 
making it muddy when all else was clean. 

On the front of his sale-board hung a little placard, like 
a kettle-holder, bearing the inscription in his own small 
text: 


Errands gone 
On with ft 
Delity By 

Ladies and Gentlemen 
I remain 

Your humble Serv*. 
Silas W egg 


He had not only settled it with himself in the course of time, 
that he was errand-goer by appointment to the house at the 
corner (though he received such commissions not half-a- 
dozen times in a year, and then only as some servant’s deputy), 
but also that he was one of the house’s retainers and owed 
vassalage to it and was bound to leal and loyal interest in it. 
For this reason, he always spoke of it as Our House,” and, 
though his knowledge of its affairs was mostly speculative 
and all wrong, claimed to be in its confidence. On similar 
grounds he never beheld an inmate at any one of its windows 
but he touched his hat. Yet, he knew so little about the 
inmates that he gave them names of his own invention: as 
“ Miss Elizabeth,” “ Master George,” “ Aunt Jane,” 
“Uncle Parker” — having no authority whatever for any 
such designations, but particularly the last — to which, as 
a natural consequence, he stuck with great obstinacy. 

Over the house itself, he exercised the same imaginary 
power as over its inhabitants and their affairs. He had never 
been in it, the length of a piece of fat black water-pipe which 
trailed itself over the area door into a damp stone passage, 
and had rather the air of a leech on the house that had “taken ” 
wonderfully; but this was no impediment to his arranging 
it according to a plan of his own. It was a great dingy house 
with a quantity of dim side window and blank back premises, 
and it cost his mind a world of trouble so to lay it out as to 
account for everything in its external appearance. But, 
this once done, was quite satisfactory, and he rested per- 



boffin’s bower 


, 51 

suaded that he knew his way about the house blindfold: 
from the barred garrets in the high roof, to the two iron 
extinguishers before the main door — which seemed to request 
all lively visitors to have the kindness to put themselves out, 
before entering. 

Assuredly, this stall of Silas Wegg’s was the hardest little 
stall of all the sterile little stalls in London. It gave you 
the face-ache to look at his apples, the stomach-ache to look 
at his oranges, the tooth-ache to look at his nuts. Of the 
latter commodity he had always a grim little heap, on which 
lay a little wooden measure which had no discernible inside, 
and was considered to represent the penn’orth appointed by 
Magna Charta. Whether from too much east wind or no — 
it was an easterly corner — the stall, the stock, and the 
keeper, were all as dry as the Desert. Wegg was a knotty 
man, and a close-grained, with a face carved out of very 
hard material, that had just as much play of expression as a 
watchman’s rattle. When he laughed, certain jerks occurred 
in it, and the rattle sprung. Sooth to say, he was so wooden 
a man that he seemed to have taken his wooden leg naturally, 
and rather suggested to the fanciful observer, that he might 
be expected — if his development received no untimely check 
— to be completely set up with a pair of wooden legs in 
about six months. 

Mr. Wegg was an observant person, or, as he himself said, 
“ took a powerful sight of notice.” He saluted all his 
regular passers-by every day, as he sat on his stool backed 
up by the lamp-post; and on the adaptable character of 
these salutes he greatly plumed himself. Thus, to the rector, 
he addressed a bow, compounded of lay deference, and a 
slight touch of the shady preliminary meditation at church; 
to the doctor, a confidential bow, as to a gentleman whose 
acquaintance with his inside he begged respectfully to 
acknowledge; before the quality he delighted to abase him- 
self; and for Uncle Parker, who was in the army (at least, 
so he had settled it), he put his open hand to the side of his 
hat, in a military manner which that angry-eyed buttoned-up 
inflammatory-faced old gentleman appeared but imperfectly 
to appreciate. 

The only article in which Silas dealt, that was not hard, 


52 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


was gingerbread. On a certain day, some wretched infant 
having purchased the damp gingerbread-horse (fearfully out 
of condition), and the adhesive bird-cage, which had been 
exposed for the day’s sale, he had taken a tin box from under 
his stool to produce a relay of those dreadful specimens, and 
was going to look in at the lid, when he said to himself, 
pausing: “ Oh! Here you are again! ” 

The words referred to a broad, round-shouldered, one- 
sided old fellow in mourning, coming comically ambling 
towards the corner, dressed in a pea overcoat, and carrying a 
large stick. He wore thick shoes, and thick leather gaiters, 
and thick gloves like a hedger’s. Both as to his dress and 
to himself, he was of an overlapping rhinoceros build, with 
folds in his cheeks, and his forehead, and his eyelids, and his 
lips, and his ears ; but with bright, eager, childishly-inquiring 
gray eyes, under his ragged eyebrows, and broad-brimmed 
hat. A very odd-looking old fellow altogether. 

Here you are again,” repeated Mr. Wegg, musing. 
“ And what are you now? Are you in the Funns, or where 
are you? Have you lately come to settle in this neighbour- 
hood, or do you own to another neighbourhood? Are you 
in independent circumstances, or is it wasting the motions of 
a bow on you? Come! I’ll speculate! I’ll invest a bow 
in you.” 

Which Mr. Wegg, having replaced his tin box, accordingly 
did, as he rose to bait his gingerbread-trap for some other 
devoted infant. The salute was acknowledged with: 

“ Morning, sir! Morning! Morning! ” 

(“ Calls me sir! ” said Mr. Wegg to himself. “ He won’t 
answer. A bow gone! ”) 

“ Morning, morning, morning! ” 

“ Appears to be rather a ’arty old cock, too,” said Mr. 
Wegg, as before. “ Good morning to you, sir.” 

“ Do you remember me, then ? ” asked his new acquaint- 
ance, stopping in his amble, one-sided, before the stall, and 
speaking in a pouncing way, though with great good- 
humour. 

“ I have noticed you go past our house, sir, several times 
in the course of the last week or so.” 

“ Our house,” repeated the other. “ Meaning ? ” 


boffin’s bower 53 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Wegg, nodding, as the other pointed the 
clumsy forefinger of his right glove at the corner house. 

“ Oh! Now, what,” pursued the old fellow, in an inquisi- 
tive manner, carrying his knotted stick in his left arm as if it 
were a baby, “ what do they allow you now? ” 

“ It’s job work that I do for our house,” returned Silas, 
drily, and with reticence; “ it’s not yet brought to an exact 
allowance.” 

“ Oh! It’s not yet brought to an exact allowance? No! 
It’s not yet brought to an exact allowance. Oh ! — Morning, 
morning, morning! ” 

“ Appears to be rather a cracked old cock,” thought 
Silas, qualifying his former good opinion, as the other ambled 
off. But, in a moment he was back again with the ques- 
tion: 

“ How did you get your wooden leg? ” 

Mr. Wegg replied (tartly to this personal inquiry), “ In 
an accident.” 

“ Do you like it? ” 

“ Well! I haven’t got to keep it warm,’’ Mr. Wegg made 
answer, in a sort of desperation occasioned by the singularity 
of the question. 

“ He hasn’t,” repeated the other to his knotted stick, as he 
gave it a hug; “he hasn’t got — ha! — ha! — to keep it 
warm ! Did you ever hear of the name of Boffin ? ” 

“ No,” said Mr. Wegg, who was growing restive under 
this examination. “ I never did hear of the name of Boffin.” 

“ Do you like it? ” 

“ Why, no,” retorted Mr. Wegg, again approaching despe- 
ration; “ I can’t say I do.” 

“ Why don’t you like it? ” 

“ I don’t know why I don’t,” retorted Mr. Wegg, approach- 
ing frenzy, “ but I don’t at all.” 

“ Now, I’ll tell you something that’ll make you sorry for 
that,” said the stranger, smiling. “ My name’s Boffin.” 

“ I can’t help it! ” returned Mr. Wegg. Implying in his 
manner the offensive addition, “ and if I could, I wouldn’t.” 

“ But there’s another chance for you,” said Mr. Boffin, 
smiling still. “ Do you like the name of Nicodemus ? Think 
it over. Nick, or Noddy.” 


54 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ It is not, sir,” Mr. Wegg rejoined, as he sat down on 
his stool, with an air of gentle resignation, combined with 
melancholy candour; “it is not a name as I could wish any 
one that I had a respect for, to call me by; but there may 
be persons that would not view it with the same objections. 
— I don’t know why,” Mr. Wegg added, anticipating another 
question. 

“ Noddy Boffin,” said that gentleman. “ Noddy.. That’s 
my name. Noddy — or Nick — Boffin. What’s your 
name? ” 

“ Silas Wegg. — I don’t,” said Mr, Wegg, bestirring him- 
self to take the same precaution as before, “ I don’t know why 
Silas, and I don’t know why Wegg.” 

“ Now, Wegg,” said Mr. Boffin, hugging his stick closer, 

“ I want to make a sort of offer to you. Do you remember 
when you first see me ? ” 

The wooden leg looked at him with a meditative eye, and 
also with a softened air as descrying possibility of profit. “ I^et 
me think. I ain’t quite sure, and yet I generally take a 
powerful sight of notice, too. Was it on a Monday morning, 
when the butcher-boy had been to our house for orders, and 
bought a ballad of me, which, being unacquainted with the 
tune, I run it over to him ? ” 

“ Right, Wegg, right! But he bought more than one.” 

“Yes, to be sure, sir; he bought several; and wishing to 
lay out his money to the best, he took my opinion to guide 
his choice, and we went over the collection together. To be 
sure we did. Here was him as it might be, and here was 
myself as it might be, and there was you, Mr. Boffin, as you 
identically are, with your self-same stick under your wery 
same arm, and your wery same back towards us. To — be — 
sure!” added Mr. Wegg, looking a little round Mr. Boffin, 
to take him in the rear, and identify this last extraordinary 
coincidence, “ your wery self-same back! ” 

“ What do you think I was doing, Wegg ? ” 

“ I should judge, sir, that you might be glancing your eye 
down the street.” 

“ No, Wegg. I was a listening.” 

“ Was you, indeed ? ” said Mr. Wegg, dubiously. 

“ Not in a dishonourable way, Wegg, because you was 


BOFFIN^S BOWER 55 

singing to the butcher; and you wouldn't sing secrets to a 
butcher in the street, you know.” 

“ It never happened that I did so yet, to the best of my 
remembrance,” said Mr. Wegg, cautiously. “But I might 
do it. A man can’t say what he might wish to do some day 
or another.” (This, not to release any little advantage he 
might derive from Mr. Boffin’s avowal.) 

“ Well,” repeated Boffin, “ I was a listening to you and to 
him. And what do you — you haven’t got another stool, have 
you? I’m rather thick in my breath.” 

“ I haven’t got another, but you’re welcome to this,” said 
Wegg, resigning it. “ It’s a treat to me to stand.” 

“ Lard!” exclaimed Mr. Boffin, in a tone of great enjoy- 
ment, as he settled himself down, still nursing his stick like 
a baby, “ it’s a pleasant place, this! And then to be shut 
in on each side, with these ballads, like so many book-leaf 
blinkers! Why, it’s delightful! ” 

“ If I am not mistaken, sir,” Mr. Wegg delicately hinted, 
resting a hand on his stall, and bending over the discursive 
Boffin, “ you alluded to some offer or another that was in 
your mind ? ” 

“ I’m coming to it! All right. I’m coming to it! I was 
going to say that when I listened that morning, I listened 
with hadmiration amounting to haw. I thought to myself, 

* Here’s a man with a wooden leg — a literary man with ’ ” 

“ N — ^not exactly so, sir,” said Mr. Wegg. 

“ Why, you know every one of these songs by name and 
by tune, and if you want to read or to sing any one on ’em 
off straight, you’ve only to whip on your spectacles and do 
it! ” cried Mr. Boffin. “ I see you at it! ” 

“ Well, sir,” returned Mr. Wegg, with a conscious inclina- 
tion of the head; “ we’ll say literary, then.” 

“ ‘ A literary man — with a wooden leg — and all Print is 
open to him ! ’ That’s what I thought to myself, that morn- 
ing,” pursued Mr. Boffin, leaning forward to describe, un- 
cramped by the clothes-horse, as large an arc as his right arm 
could make; “ ‘all Print is open to him! ’ And it is, ain’t it? ” 
“ Why, truly, sir,” Mr. Wegg admitted with modesty; “ I 
believe you couldn’t show me the piece of English print, that 
I wouldn’t be equal to collaring and throwing.” 


56 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ On the spot? ” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ On the spot.” 

“ I know’d it! Then consider this. Here am I, a man 
without a wooden leg, and yet all print is shut to me.” 

“ Indeed, sir? ” Mr. Wegg returned with increasing self- 
complacency. “Education neglected?” 

“ Neg — lectedi ” repeated Boffin, with emphasis. “ That 
ain’t no word for it. I don’t mean to say but what if you 
showed me a B, I could so far give you change for it, as to 
answ’er Boffin.” 

“ Come, come, sir,” said Mr. Wegg, throwing in a little 
encouragement, “ that’s something, too.” 

“ It’s something,” answered Mr. Boffin, “ but I’ll take my 
oath it ain’t much.” 

“ Perhaps it’s not as much as could be wished by an in- 
quiring mind, sir,” Mr. Wegg admitted. 

“ Now, look here. I’m retired from business. Me and 
Mrs. Boffin — Henerietty Boffin — which her father’s name 
was Henery, and her mother’s name was Hetty, and so you get 
it — we live on a compittance, under the will of a diseased 
governor.” 

“ Gentleman dead, sir? ” 

“Man alive, don’t I tell you? A diseased governor? 
Now, it’s too late for me to begin shovelling and sifting at 
alphabeds and grammar-books. I’m getting to be a old bird, 
and I want to take it easy. But I want some reading — some 
fine bold reading, some splendid book in a gorging Lord- 
Mayor’s-Show of wollumes ” (probably meaning gorgeous, 
but misled by association of ideas); “ as’ll reach right down 
your pint of view, and take time to go by you. How can I get 
that reading, Wegg? By,” tapping him on the breast with 
the head of his thick stick, “ paying a man truly qualified 
to do it, so much an hour (say twopence) to come and do 
it.” 

“Hem! Flattered, sir, I am sure,” said Wegg, beginning 
to regard himself in quite a new light. “ Hem! This is the 
offer you mentioned, sir? ” 

“ Yes. Do you like it? ” 

“ I am considering of it, Mr. Boffin.” 

“ I don’t,” said Boffin, in a free-handed manner, “ want to 


boffin’s bower 


57 


tie a literary man — with a wooden leg — down too tight. A 
halfpenny an hour shan’t part us. The hours are your own 
to choose, after you’ve done for the day with your house 
here. I live over Maiden Lane way — out Holloway direction 
— and you’ve only got to go East-and-by-North when you’ve 
finished here, and you’re there. Twopence halfpenny an 
hour,” said Boffin, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket 
and getting off the stool to work the sum on the top of it in 
his own way; two long’uns and a short’un — twopence half- 
penny; two short’uns is a long’un, and two two long’uns is 
four long’uns — making five long’uns; six nights a week at 
five long’uns a night,” scoring them all down separately, 
“ and you mount up to thirty long’uns. A round’uni Half- 
a-crown I ” 

Pointing to this result as a large and satisfactory one, Mr. 
Boffin smeared it out with his moistened glove, and sat down 
on the remains. 

“ Half-a-crown,” said Wegg, meditating. ‘‘ Yes. (It ain’t 
much, sir.) Half-a-crown.” 

“ Per week, you know.” 

Per week. Yes. As to the amount of strain upon the 
intellect now. Was you thinking at all of poetry ? ” Mr. 
Wegg inquired, musing. 

“ Would it come dearer? ” Mr. Boffin asked. 

“ It would come dearer,” Mr. Wegg returned. “ For 
when a person comes to grind off poetry night after night, 
it is but right he should expect to be paid for its weakening 
effect on his mind.” 

“ To tell you the truth, Wegg,” said Boffin, “ I wasn’t 
thinking of poetry, except in so fur as this : — If you was to 
happen now and then to feel yourself in the mind to tip me 
and Mrs. Boffin one of your ballads, why then we should 
drop into poetry.” 

I follow you, sir,” said Wegg. “ But not being a regular 
musical professional, I should be loath to engage myself 
for that; and therefore when I dropped into poetry, I should 
ask to be considered in the light of a friend.” 

At this, Mr. Boffin’s eyes sparkled, and he shook Silas 
earnestly by the hand: protesting that it was more than he 
could have asked, and that he took it very kindly indeed. 


58 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ What do you think of the terms, Wegg ? ” Mr. Boffin 
then demanded, with unconcealed anxiety. 

Silas, who had stimulated this anxiety by his hard reserve 
of manner, and who had begun to understand his man very 
well, replied with an air; as if he were saying something 
extraordinarily generous and great: 

“ Mr. Boffin, I never bargain.” 

“So I should have thought of you I” said Mr. Boffin, 
admiringly. 

“ No, sir. I never did *aggle and I never will ’aggie. 
Consequently I meet you at once, free and fair, with — Done, 
for double the money ! ” 

Mr. Boffin seemed a little unprepared for this conclusion, 
but assented, with the remark, “You know better what it 
ought to be than I do, Wegg,” and again shook hands with 
him upon it. 

“ Could you begin to-night, Wegg? he then demanded. 

“ Yes, sir,” said Mr. Wegg, careful to leave all the eager- 
ness to him. “ I see no difficulty if you wish it. You are 
provided with the needful implement — a book, sir ? ” 

“ Bought him at a sale,” said Mr. Boffin. “ Eight wol- 
lumes. Red and gold. Purple ribbon in every wollume, to 
keep the place where you leave off. Do you know him ? ” 

“The book’s name, sir?” inquired Silas. 

“ I thought you might have know’d him without it,” said 
Mr. Boffin, slightly disappointed. “ His name is Decline- 
and-Fall-Off-The-Rooshan-Empire.” (Mr. Boffin went over 
these stones slowly and with much caution.) 

“Ay indeed! ” said Mr. Wegg, nodding his head with an 
air of friendly recognition. 

“ You know him, Wegg? ” 

“ I haven’t been not to say right slap through him, very 
lately,” Mr. Wegg made answer, “ having been otherways 
employed, Mr. Boffin. But know him? Old familiar de- 
clining and falling off the Rooshan? Rather, sir! Ever since 
I was not so high as your stick. Ever since my eldest brother 
left our cottage to enlist into the army. On which occasion, as 
the ballad that was made about it describes: 

“ Beside that cottage door, Mi . Boffin, 

A girl was on her knees; 


boffin’s bower 


59 


She held aloft a snowj’- scarf, sir, 

Which (my eldest brother noticed) fluttered in the breeze. 

She breathed a prayer for him, Mr. Boffin; 

A prayer he coold not hear. 

And my eldest brother lean’d upon his sword, Mr. Boffin, 

And wiped away a tear.'' 

Much impressed by this family circumstance, and also by 
the friendly disposition of Mr. Wegg, as exemplified in hfs 
so soon dropping into poetry, Mr. Boffin again shook hands 
with that ligneous sharper, and besought him to name his 
hour. Mr. Wegg named eight. 

“ Where I live,” said Mr. Boffin, “ is called The Bower 
Boffin’s Bower is the name Mrs. Boffin christened it when we 
come into it as a property. If you should meet with any- 
body that don’t know it by that name (which hardly any- 
body does), when you’ve got nigh upon about a odd mile, or 
say and a quarter if you like, up Maiden Lane, Battle Bridge, 
ask for Harmony Jail, and you’ll be put right. I shall expect 
you, Wegg,” said Mr. Boffin, clapping him on the shoulder 
with the greatest enthusiasm, “ most jyfully. I shall have 
no peace or patience till you come. Print is now opening 
ahead of me. This night, a literary man — with a wooden 
leg ” — he bestowed an admiring look upon that decoration, 
as if it greatly enhanced the relish of Mr. Wegg’s attain- 
ments — “ will begin to lead me a new life! My fist again, 
Wegg. Morning, morning, morning!” 

Left alone at his stall as the other ambled off, Mr. Wegg 
subsided into his screen, produced a small pocket-handker- 
chief of a penitentially-scrubbing character, and took himself 
by the nose with a thoughtful aspect. Also, while he still 
grasped that feature, he directed several thoughtful looks 
down the street, after the retiring figure of Mr. Boffin. But, 
profound gravity sat enthroned on Wegg’s countenance. For, 
while he considered within himself that this was an old 
fellow of rare simplicity, that this was an opportunity to be 
improved, and that here might be money to be got beyond 
present calculation, still he compromised himself by no 
admission that his new engagement was at all out of his way, 
or involved the least element of the ridiculous. Mr. Wegg 
would even have picked a handsome quarrel with any one 
who should have challenged his deep acquaintance with those 


60 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


aforesaid eight volumes of Decline and Fall. His gravity 
was unusual, portentous, and immeasurable, not because he 
admitted any doubt of himself, but because he perceived it 
necessary to forestall any doubt of himself in others. And 
herein he ranged with that very numerous class of impostors, 
who are quite as determined to keep up appearances to them- 
selves, as to their neighbours. 

A certain loftiness, likewise, took possession of Mr. Wegg; 
a condescending sense of being in request as an official 
expounder of mysteries. It did not move him to commercial 
greatness, but rather to littleness, insomuch that if it had 
been within the possibilities of things for the wooden measure 
to hold fewer nuts than usual, it would have done so that 
day. But, when night came, and with her veiled eyes be- 
held him stumping towards Boffin’s Bower, he was elated 
too. 

The Bower was as difficult to find, as Fair Rosamond’s 
without the clue. Mr. Wegg, having reached the quarter 
indicated, inquired for the Bower half-a-dozen times without 
the least success, until he remembered to ask for Harmony 
Jail. This occasioned a quick change in the spirits of a hoarse 
gentleman and a donkey, whom he had much perplexed. 

“ Why, yer mean Old Harmon’s, do yer? ” said the hoarse 
gentleman, who was driving his donkey in a truck, with a 
carrot for a whip. “ Why didn’t yer niver say so? Eddard 
and me is a-goin’ by him! Jump in.” 

Mr. Wegg complied, and the hoarse gentleman invited his 
attention to the third person in company, thus: 

“ Now, you look at Eddard’s ears. What was it as you 
named, agin ? Whisper.” 

Mr. Wegg whispered, “ Boffin’s Bower.” 

” Eddard! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away to Boffin’s 
Bower! ” Edward, with his ears lying back, remained 
immovable. 

“ Eddard! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut av/ay to Old Har- 
mon’s.” 

Edward instantly pricked up his ears to their utmost, and 
rattled off at such a pace that Mr. Wegg’s conversation was 
jolted out of him in a most dislocated state. 

” Was-it-Ev-verajail? ” asked Mr. Wegg, holding on. 


boffin’s bower 


61 


“ Not a proper jail, wot you and me would get committed 
to,” returned his escort; “ they giv’ it the name, on accounts 
of Old Harmon living solitary there.” 

“ And-why-did-they-callitharm-Ony ? ” asked Wegg. 

“ On accounts of his never agreeing with nobody. Like a 
speeches of chaff. Harmon’s Jail; Harmony Jail. Working 
it round like.” 

“ Do you know-Mist-Erboff-in ? ” asked Wegg. 

“ I should think so! Everybody do about here. Eddard 
knows him. (Keep yer hi on his ears.) Noddy Boffin,' 
Eddard!” 

The effect of the name was so very alarming, in respect of 
causing a temporary disappearance of Edward’s head, cast- 
ing his hind hoofs in the air, greatly accelerating the pace and 
increasing the jolting, that Mr. Wegg was fain to devote his 
attention exclusively to holding on, and to relinquish his 
desire of ascertaining whether this homage to Boffin was to 
be considered complimentary or the reverse. 

Presently, Edward stopped at a gateway, and Wegg dis- 
creetly lost no time in slipping out at the back of the truck. 
The moment he was landed, his late driver with a wave of the 
carrot, said “ Supper, Eddard! ” and he, the hind hoofs, the 
truck, and Edward, all seemed to fly into the air together, 
in a kind of apotheosis. 

Pushing the gate, which stood ajar, Wegg looked into an 
enclosed space where certain tall dark mounds rose high 
against the sky, and where the pathway to the Bower was 
indicated, as the moonlight showed, between two lines of 
broken crockery set in ashes. A white figure advancing 
along this path, proved to be nothing more ghostly than 
Mr. Boffin, easily attired for the pursuit of knowledge, in an 
undress garment of short white smock-frock. Having received 
his literary friend with great cordiality, he conducted him to 
the interior of the Bower and there presented him to Mrs. 
Boffin : — a stout lady of a rubicund and cheerful aspect, 
dressed (to Mr. Wegg’s consternation) in a low evening dress 
of sable satin, and a large black velvet hat and feathers. 

“ Mrs. Boffin, Wegg,” said Boffin, “is a highflier at 
Fashion. And her make is such, that she does it credit. As 
to myself, I ain’t yet as Fash’nable as I may come to be. 


62 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Henerietty, old lady, this is the gentleman that’s a going to 
decline and fall off the Rooshan Empire.” 

“ And I am sure I hope it’ll do you both good,” said Mrs. 
Boffin. 

It was the queerest of rooms, fitted and furnished more 
like a luxurious amateur tap-room than anything else within 
the ken of Silas Wegg. There were two wooden settles by 
the fire, one on either side of it, with a corresponding table 
before each. On one of these tables, the eight volumes were 
ranged flat, in a row, like a galvanic battery; on the other, 
certain squat case-bottles of inviting appearance seemed to 
stand on tiptoe to exchange glances with Mr. Wegg over a 
front row of tumblers and a basin of white sugar. On the 
hob, a kettle steamed; on the hearth, a cat reposed. Facing 
the fire between the settles, a sofa, a footstool, and a little 
table, formed a centrepiece devoted to Mrs. Boffin. They 
were garish in taste and colour, but were expensive articles of 
drawing-room furniture that had a very odd look beside the 
settles and the flaring gaslight pendent from the ceiling. 
There was a flowery carpet on the floor; but, instead of 
reaching to the fireside, its glowing vegetation stopped short 
at Mrs. Boffin’s footstool, and gave place to a region of sand 
and sawdust. Mr. Wegg also noticed, with admiring eyes, 
that, while the flowery land displayed such hollow ornamenta- 
tion as stuffed birds and waxen fruits under glass shades, there 
were, in the territory where vegetation ceased, compensatory 
shelves on which the best part of a large pie and likewise of 
a cold joint were plainly discernible among other solids. The 
room itself was large, though low; and the heavy frames of 
its old-fashioned windows, and the heavy beams in its crooked 
ceiling, seemed to indicate that it had once been a house 
of some mark standing alone in the country. 

“ Do you like it, Wegg? ” asked Mr. Boffin, in his pouncing 
manner. 

“ I admire it greatly, sir,” said Wegg. “ Peculiar comfort 
at this fireside, sir.” 

Do you understand it, Wegg? ” 

Why, in a general way, sir,” Mr. Wegg was beginning 
slowly and knowingly, with his head stuck on one side, as 
evasive people do begin, when the other cut him short: 


boffin's bower 


63 


You don't understand it, Wegg, and I’ll explain it. These 
arrangements is made by mutual consent between Mrs. Boffin 
and me. Mrs. Boffin, as I’ve mentioned, is a highflier at Fash- 
ion; at present I’m not. I don’t go higher than comfort, and 
comfort of the sort that I’m equal to the enjoyment of. Well 
then. Where would be the good of Mrs. Boffin and me 
quarrelling over it? We never did quarrel, before we come 
into Boffin’s Bower as a property; why quarrel when we have 
come into Boffin’s Bower as a property ? So Mrs. Boffin, she 
keeps up her part of the room, in her way; I keep up my 
part of the room in mine. In consequence of which we 
have at once, Sociability (I should go melancholy mad with- 
out Mrs. Boffin), Fashion, and Comfort. If I get by degrees 
to be a highflyer at Fashion, then Mrs. Boffin will by de- 
grees come forwarder. If Mrs. Boffin should ever be less 
of a dab at Fashion than she is at the present time, then 
Mrs. Boffin’s carpet would go back’arder. If we should both 
continny as we are, why then here we are, and give us a kiss, 
old lady.” ‘ 

Mrs. Boffin, who, perpetually smiling, had approached and 
drawn her plump arm through her lord’s, most willingly com- 
plied. Fashion, in the form of her black velvet hat and 
feathers, tried to prevent it; but got deservedly crushed in 
the endeavour. 

“ So now, Wegg,” said Mr. Boffin, wiping his mouth with 
an air of much refreshment, “ you begin to know us as we 
are. This is a charming spot, is the Bower, but you must 
get to appreciate it by degrees. It’s a spot to find out the 
merits of, little by little, and a new ’un every day. There’s 
a serpentining walk up each of the mounds, that gives you 
the yard and neighbourhood changing every moment. When 
you get to the top, there’s a view of the neighbouring prem- 
ises, not to be surpassed. The premises of Mrs. Boffin’s 
late father (Canine Provision Trade), you look down into, as 
if they was your own. And the top of the High Mound is 
crowned with a lattice-work Arbour, in which, if you don’t 
read out loud many a book in the summer, ay, and as a 
friend, drop many a time into poetry too, it shan’t be my 
fault. Now, what’ll you read on ? ” 

“ Thank you, sir,” returned Wegg, as if there were nothing 


64 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


new in his reading at all. “ I generally do it on gin and 
water.’’ 

Keeps the organ moist, does it, Wegg? ” asked Mr. Boffin 
with innocent eagerness. 

“ N-no, sir,” replied Wegg, coolly, ” I should hardly de- 
scribe it so, sir. I should say, mellers it. Mellers it, is the 
word I should employ, Mr. Boffin.” 

His wooden conceit and craft kept exact pace with the 
delighted expectation of his victim. The visions rising before 
his mercenary mind, of the many ways in which this con- 
nection was to be turned to account, never obscured the 
foremost idea natural to a dull overreaching man, that he 
must not make himself too cheap. 

Mrs. Boffin’s Fashion, as a less inexorable deity than the 
idol usually worshipped under that name, did not forbid her 
mixing for her literary guest, or asking if he found the result 
to his liking. On his returning a gracious answer and taking 
his place at the literary settle, Mr. Boffin began to compose 
himself as a listener, at the opposite settle, with exultant eyes. 

” Sorry to deprive you of a pipe, Wegg,” he said, filling 
his own, “ but you can’t do both together. Oh! and another 
thing I forgot to name! When you come in here of an even- 
ing, and look round you, and notice anything on a shelf 
that happens to catch your fancy, mention it.” 

Wegg, who had been going to put on his spectacles, im- 
mediately laid them down, with the sprightly observation: 

“You read my thoughts, sir. Do my eyes deceive me, or 
is that object up there a — a pie? It can’t be a pie.” 

” Yes, it’s a pie, Wegg,” replied Mr. Boffin, with a glance 
of some little discomfiture at the Decline and Fall. 

“ Have I lost my smell for fruits, or is it a apple pie, sir? ” 
asked Wegg. 

“ It’s a veal and ham pie,” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ Is it, indeed, sir? And it would be hard, sir, to name 
the pie that is a better pie than a weal and hammer,” said 
Mr. Wegg, nodding his head emotionally. 

“Have some, Wegg?” 

“ Thank you, Mr. Boffin, I think I will, at your invitation. 
I wouldn’t at any other party’s, at the present juncture; 
but at yours, sir! — And meaty jelly too, especially when a 


boffin's bower 


65 


little salt, which is the case where there's ham, is mellering 
to the organ, is very mellering to the organ.” Mr. Wegg 
did not say what organ, but spoke with a cheerful generality. 

So the pie was brought down, and the worthy Mr. Boffin 
exercised his patience until Wegg, in the exercise of his knife 
and fork, had finished the dish: only profiting by the op- 
portunity to inform Wegg that although it was not strictly 
Fashionable to keep the contents of a larder thus exposed to 
view, he (Mr. Boffin) considered it hospitable: for the reason, 
that instead of saying, in a comparatively unmeaning manner, 
to a visitor, ” There are such and such edibles down-stairs; 
will you have anything up ? ” you took the bold practical 
course of saying, “ Cast your eye along the shelves, and, if 
you see anything you like there, have it down.” 

And now, Mr. Wegg at length pushed away his plate and 
put on his spectacles, and Mr. Boffin lighted his pipe and 
looked with beaming eyes into the opening world before him, 
and Mrs. Boffin reclined in a fashionable manner on her sofa: 
as one who would be part of the audience if she found she 
could, and would go to sleep if she found she couldn’t. 

“ Hem! ” began Wegg. ” This, Mr. Boffin and Lady, is 
the first chapter of the first wollume of the Decline and Fall 
off ” here he looked hard at the book, and stopped. 

“What’s the matter, Wegg?” 

“ Why, it comes into my mind, do you know, sir,” said 
Wegg with an air of insinuating frankness (having first again 
looked hard at the book), “ that you made a little mistake 
this morning, which I had meant to set you right in, only 
something put it out of my head. I think you said Rooshan 
Empire, sir ? ” 

“ It is Rooshan; ain’t it, Wegg? ” 

“ No, sir. Roman. Roman.” 

“ What’s the difference, Wegg? ” 

“ The difference, sir ? ” Mr. Wegg was faltering and in 
danger of breaking down, when a bright thought flashed 
upon him. “ The difference, sir? There you place me in a 
difficulty, Mr. Boffin. Suffice it to observe, that the difference 
is best postponed to some other occasion when Mrs. Boffin 
does not honour us with her company. In Mrs. Boffin’s 
presence, sir, we had better drop it.” 


66 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Mr. Wegg thus came out of his disadvantage with quite a 
chivalrous air, and not only that, but by dint of repeating 
with a manly delicacy, “ In Mrs. Boffin’s presence, sir, we 
had better drop it! ” turned the disadvantage on Boffin, 
who felt that he had committed himself in a very painful 
manner. 

Then, Mr. Wegg, in a dry unflinching way, entered on his 
task; going straight across country at everything that came 
before him; taking all the hard words, biographical and 
geographical; getting rather shaken by Hadrian, Trajan, and 
the Antonines; stumbling at Polybius (pronounced Polly 
Beeious, and supposed by Mr. Boffin to be a Roman virgin, 
and by Mrs. Boffin to be responsible for that necessity of 
dropping it); heavily unseated by Titus Antoninus Pius; up 
again and galloping smoothly with Augustus; finally, getting 
over the ground well with Commodus; who, under the appel- 
lation of Commodious, was held by Mr. Boffin to have been 
quite unworthy of his English origin, and “ not to have acted 
up to his name ” in his government of the Roman people. 
With the death of this personage, Mr. Wegg terminated his 
first reading; long before which consummation several total 
eclipses of Mrs. Boffin’s candle behind her black velvet disc, 
would have been very alarming, but for being regularly 
accompanied by a potent smell of burnt pens when her 
feathers took fire, which acted as a restorative and woke her. 
Mr. Wegg having read on by rote and attached as few ideas as 
possible to the text, came out of the encounter fresh; but, 
Mr. Boffin, who had soon laid down his unfinished pipe, and 
had ever since sat intently staring with his eyes and mind 
at the confounding enormities of the Romans, was so severely 
punished that he could hardly wish his literary friend Good 
night, and articulate “ To-morrow.” 

“ Commodious,” gasped Mr. Boffin, staring at the moon, 
after letting Wegg out of the gate and fastening it: “ Com- 
modious fights in that wild-beast-show, seven hundred and 
thirty-five times, in one character only! As if that wasn’t 
stunning enough, a hundred lions is turned into the same 
wild-beast-show all at once! As if that wasn’t stunning 
enough. Commodious, in another character, kills ’em all off 
in a hundred goes! As if that wasn’t stunning enough. 


boffin’s bower 


67 


Vittle-us (and well named too) eat six millions’ worth, English 
money, in seven months! Wegg takes it easy, but upon-my- 
soul to a old bird like myself these are scarers. And even 
now that Commodious is strangled, I don’t see a way to our 
bettering ourselves.” Mr. Boffin added as he turned his 
pensive steps towards the Bower and shook his head, “ I 
didn’t think this morring there was half so many Scarers 
in Print. But I’m in for it now! ” 


CHAPTER VI 


CUT ADRIFT 

The Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, already mentioned as a 
tavern of a dropsical appearance, had long settled down into 
a state of hale infirmity. In its whole constitution it had 
not a straight floor, and hardly a straight line; but it had 
outlasted, and clearly would yet outlast, many a better- 
trimmed building, many a sprucer public-house. Externally, 
it was a narrow lopsided wooden jumble of corpulent v/indows 
heaped one upon another as you might heap as many top- 
pling oranges, with a crazy wooden verandah impending 
over the water; indeed the whole house, inclusive of the 
complaining flag staff on the roof, impended over the water, 
but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted 
diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will never 
go in at all. 

This description applies to the river-frontage of the Six 
Jolly Fellowship-Porters. The back of the establishment, 
though the chief entrance was there, so contracted, that it 
merely represented in its connection with the front, the 
handle of a flat-iron set upright on its broadest end. This 
handle stood at the bottom of a wilderness of court and 
alley: which wilderness pressed so hard and close upon the 
Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters as to leave the hostelry not an 
inch of ground beyond its door. For this reason, in com- 
bination with the fact that the house was all but afloat at 
high water, when the Porters had a family wash the linen 
subjected to that operation might usually be seen drying on 
lines stretched across the reception-rooms and bedchambers. 

The wood forming the chimneypieces, beams, partitions, 
floors, and doors, of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, seemed 
in its old age fraught with confused memories of its youth. 


CUT ADRIFT 


69 


In many places it had become gnarled and riven, according 
to the manner of old trees; knots started out of it; and here 
and there it seemed to twist itself into some likeness of 
boughs. In this state of second childhood, it had an air of 
being in its own way garrulous about its early life. Not 
without reason was it often asserted by the regular frequenters 
of the Porters, that when the light shone full upon the grain 
of certain panels, and particularly, upon an old comer cup- 
board of walnut-wood in the bar, you might trace little 
forests there, and tiny trees like the parent tree, in full um- 
brageous leaf. 

The bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters was a bar to 
soften the human breast. The available space in it was not 
much larger than a hackney-coach; but no one could have 
wished the bar bigger, that space was so girt in by corpulent 
little casks, and by cordial-bottles radiant with fictitious 
grapes in bunches, and by lemons in nets, and by biscuits in 
baskets, and by the polite beer-pulls that made low bows 
when customers were served with beer, and by the cheese in 
a snug corner, and by the landlady’s own small table in a 
snugger corner near the fire, with the cloth everlastingly laid. 
This haven was divided from the rough world by a glass 
partition and a half-door with a leaden sill upon it for the 
convenience of resting your liquor; but, over this half- door 
the bar’s snugness so gushed forth, that, albeit customers 
drank there standing, in a dark and draughty passage where 
they were shouldered by other customers passing in and out, 
they always appeared to drink under an enchanting delusion 
that they were in the bar itself. 

For the rest, both the tap and parlour of the Six Jolly 
Fellowship-Porters gave upon the river, and had red curtains 
matching the noses of the regular customers, and were pro- 
vided with comfortable fireside tin utensils, like models of 
sugar loaf hats, made in that shape that they might, with 
their pointed ends, seek out for themselves glowing nooks in 
the depths of the red coals, when they mulled your ale, or 
heated for you those delectable drinks, Purl, Flip, and Dog’s 
Nose. The first of these humming compounds was a speciality 
of the Porters, which, through an inscription on its door- 
posts, gently appealed to your feelings as, “ The Early Purl 


70 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


House.” For, it would seem that Purl must always be taken 
early; though whether for any more distinctly stomachic 
reason than that, as the early bird catches the worm, so the 
early purl catches the customer, cannot here be resolved. It 
only remains to add that in the handle of the flat-iron, and 
opposite the bar, was a very little room like a three-comere.l 
hat, into which no direct ray of sun, moon, or star, ever 
penetrated, but which was superstitiously regarded as a 
sanctuary replete with comfort and retirement by gaslight, 
and on the door of which was therefore painted its alluring 
name: Cosy. 

Miss Potterson, sole proprietor and manager of the Fellow- 
ship-Porters, reigned supreme on her throne, the Bar, and a 
man must have drunk himself mad drunk indeed if he thought^ 
he could contest a point with her. Being known on her own 
authority as Miss Abbey Potterson, some water-side heads, 
which (like the water) -were none of the clearest, harboured 
muddled notions that, because of her dignity and firmness, 
she was named after, or in some sort related to, the Abbey 
at Westminster. But Abbey was only short for Abigail, by 
which name Miss Potterson had been christened at Limehouse 
Church, some sixty and odd years before. 

“ Now, you mind, you Riderhood,” said Miss Abbey 
Potterson, with emphatic forefinger over the half -door, “ the 
Fellowships don’t want you at all, and would rather by far 
have your room than your company; but if you were as 
welcome here as you are not, you shouldn’t even then have 
another drop of drink here this night, after this present pint 
of beer. So make the most of it.” 

“ But you know, Miss Potterson,” this was suggested very 
meekly though, “ if I behave myself, you can’t help serving 
me, miss.” 

“ CanH I! ” said Abbey, with infinite expression. 

“ No, Miss Potterson; because, you see, the law ” 

“ I am the law here, my man,” returned Miss Abbey, “ and 
I’ll soon convince you of that, if you doubt it at all.” 

“ I never said I did doubt it at all. Miss Abbey.” 

“ So much the better for you.” 

Abbey the supreme threw the customer’s halfpence into the 
till, and, seating herself in her fireside chair, resumed the 










CUT ADRIFT 


71 


newspaper she had been reading. She was a tall, upright, 
well-favoured woman, though severe of countenance, and had 
more of the air of a schoolmistress than mistress of the Six 
Jolly Fellowship-Porters. The man on the other side of the 
half-door, was a water-side man with a squinting leer, and 
he eyed her as if he were one of her pupils in disgrace. 

“ You’re cruel hard upon me. Miss Potterson.” 

Miss Potterson read her newspaper with contracted brows, 
and took no notice until he whispered: 

“Miss Potterson! Ma’am! Might I have half a word 
with you ? ” 

Deigning then to turn her eyes sideways towards the 
suppliant. Miss Potterson beheld him knuckling his low fore- 
head, and ducking at her with his head, as if he were asking 
leave to fling himself head foremost over the half-door and 
alight on his feet in the bar. 

“ Well? ” said Miss Potterson, with a manner as short as 
she herself was long, “ say your half word. Bring it out.” 

“ Miss Potterson! Ma’am! Would you ’scuse me taking 
the liberty of asking, is it my character that you take ob- 
jections to ? ” 

“ Certainly,” said Miss Potterson. 

“ Is it that you’re afraid of ” 

“ I am not afraid of you” interposed Miss Potterson, “ if 
you mean that.” 

“ But I humbly don’t mean that. Miss Abbey.” 

“ Then what do you mean ? ” 

“You really are so cruel hard upon me! What I was 
going to make inquiries was no more than, might you have 
any apprehensions — leastways beliefs or suppositions — that 
the company’s property mightn’t be altogether to be con- 
sidered safe, if I used the house too regular ? ” 

“ What do you want to know for? ” 

“ Well, Miss Abbey, respectfully meaning no offence to 
you, it would be some satisfaction to a man’s mind, to under- 
stand why the Fellowship-Porters is not to be free to such as 
me, and is to be free to such as Gaffer.” 

The face of the hostess darkened with some shadow of 
perplexity, as she replied: “ Gaffer has never been where you 
have been.” 


72 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Signifying in Quod, Miss ? Perhaps not. But he may 
have merited it. He may be suspected of far worse than ever 
I was.” 

“ Who suspects him ? ” 

Many, perhaps. One beyond all doubts. I do.” 

'‘You are not much,” said Miss Abbey Potterson, knitting 
her brows again with disdain. 

“ But I was his pardner. Mind you. Miss Abbey, I was 
his pardner. As such I know more of the ins and outs of 
him than any person living does. Notice this! I am the 
man that was his pardner, and I am the man that suspects 
him.” 

“ Then,” suggested Miss Abbey, though with a deeper 
shade of perplexity than before, “ you criminate yourself.” 

“No I don’t, Miss Abbey. For how does it stand? It 
stands this way. When I was his pardner, I couldn’t never 
give him satisfaction. Why couldn’t I never give him satis- 
faction? Because my luck was bad; because I couldn’t find 
many enough of ’em. How was his luck? Always good. 
Notice this! Always good! Ah! There’s a many games. 
Miss Abbey, in which there’s chance, but there’s a many 
others in which there’s skill too, mixed along with it.” 

“ That Gaffer has a skill in finding what he finds, who 
doubts, man ? ” asked Miss Abbey. 

“A skill in purwiding what he finds, perhaps,” said 
Riderhood, shaking his evil head. 

Miss Abbey knitted her brow at him, as he darkly leered 
at her. 

“ If you’re out upon the river pretty nigh every tide, and 
if you want to find a man or woman in the river, you’ll 
greatly help your luck, Miss Abbey, by knocking a man or 
woman on the head aforehand and pitching ’em in.” 

“Gracious Lud!” was the involuntary exclamation of 
Miss Potterson. 

“ Mind -you ! ” returned the other, stretching forward over 
the half-door to throw his words into the bar; for his voice 
was as if the head of his boat’s mop were down his throat; 
“ I say so. Miss Abbey! And mind you! I’ll follow him 
up. Miss Abbey! And mind you, I’ll bring him to book 
at last, if it’s twenty year hence, I will! Who’s he to be 


CUT ADRIFT 73 

favoured along of his daughter? Ain’t I got a daughter of 
my own ? ” 

With that flourish, and seeming to have talked himseli' 
rather more drunk and much more ferocious than he had 
begun by being, Mr. Riderhood took up his pint pot and 
swaggered off to the tap-room. 

Gaffer was not there, but a pretty strong muster of Miss 
Abbey’s pupils were, who exhibited, when occasion required, 
the greatest docility. On the clock’s striking ten, and Miss 
Abbey’s appearing at the door, and addressing a certain 
person in a faded scarlet jacket, with “ George Jones, your 
time’s up! I told your wife you should be punctual,” Jones 
submissively rose, gave the company good night, and retired. 
At half-past ten, on Miss Abbey’s looking in again, and 
saying, “William Williams, Bob Glamour, and Jonathan, 
you are all due,” Williams, Bob, and Jonathan with similar 
meekness took their leave and evaporated. Greater wonder 
than these, when a bottle-nosed person in a glazed hat had 
after some considerable hesitation ordered another glass of 
gin and water of the attendant potboy, and when Miss Abbey, 
instead of sending it, appeared in person, saying, “ Captain 
Joey, you have had as much as will do you good,” not only 
did the captain feebly rub his knees and contemplate the fire 
without offering a word of protest, but the rest of the company 
murmured, “Ay, ay. Captain! Miss Abbey’s right; you be 
guided by Miss Abbey, Captain.” Nor was Miss Abbey’s 
vigilance in anywise abated by this submission, but rather 
sharpened; for, looking round on the deferential faces of her 
school, and descrying two other young persons in need of 
admonition, she thus bestowed it: “ Tom Tootle, it’s time 
for a young fellow who’s going to be married next month, 
to be at home and asleep. And you needn’t nudge him, 
Mr. Jack Mullins, for I know your work begins early to- 
morrow, and I say the same to you. So come! Good night, 
like good lads! ” Upon which the blushing Tootle looked to 
Mullins, and the blushing Mullins looked to Tootle, on the 
question who should rise first, and finally both rose together 
and went out on the broad grin, followed by Miss Abbey; in 
whose presence the company did not take the liberty of 
grinning likewise. 


74 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


In such an establishment, the white-aproned potboy, with 
his shirt-sleeves arranged in a tight roll on each bare shoulder, 
was a mere hint of the possibility of physical force, thrown 
out as a matter of state and form. Exactly at the closing 
hour, all the guests who were left, filed out in the best order; 
Miss Abbey standing at the half-door of the bar, to hold a 
ceremony of review and dismissal. All wished Miss Abbey 
good night, and Miss Abbey wdshed good night to all, except 
Riderhood. The sapient potboy, looking on officially, then 
had the conviction borne in upon his soul, that the man was 
evermore outcast and excommunicate from the Six Jolly 
Fellowship-Porters. 

“ You Bob Gliddery,” said Miss Abbey to this potboy, 
“ run round to Hexam’s and tell his daughter Lizzie that I 
want to speak to her.” 

With exemplary swiftness Bob Gliddery departed, and 
returned. Lizzie, following him, arrived as one of the two 
female domestics of the Fellowship-Porters arranged on the 
snug little table by the bar fire. Miss Potterson’s supper of 
hot sausages and mashed potatoes. 

“ Come in and sit ye down, girl,” said Miss Abbey. “ Can 
you eat a bit ? ” 

“ No thank you. Miss. I have had my supper.” 

“ I have had mine too, I think,” said Miss Abbey, pushing 
away the untasted dish, “ and more than enough of it. I 
am put out, Lizzie.” 

“I am very sorry for it. Miss.” 

“ Then why, in the name of Goodness,” quoth Miss Abbey, 
sharply, “ do you do it? ” 

“ I do it. Miss ? ” 

“ There, there. Don’t look, astonished. I ought to have 
begun with a word of explanation, but it’s my way to make 
short cuts at things. I always was a pepperer. You Bob 
Gliddery there, put the chain upon the door and get ye down 
to your supper.” 

With an alacrity that seemed no less referable to the 
pepperer fact than to the supper fact. Bob obeyed, and his 
boots were heard descending towards the bed of the 
river. 

“ Lizzie Hexam, Lizzie Hexam,” then began Miss Potter- 


CUT ADRIFT 75 

son, “ how often have I held out to you the opportunity of 
getting clear of your father, and doing well ? ” 

“ Very often. Miss.” 

“ Very often? Yes I And I might as well have spoken to 
the iron funnel of the strongest sea-going steamer that passes 
the Fellowship-Porters.” 

“ No, Miss,” Lizzie pleaded, “ because that would not be 
thankful, and I am.” 

I vow and declare I am half ashamed of myself for 
taking such an interest in you,” said Miss Abbey, pettishly, 
“for I don’t believe I should do it if you were not good- 
looking. Why ain’t you ugly ? ” 

Lizzie merely answered this difficult question with an 
apologetic glance. 

“ However, you ain’t,” resumed Miss Potterson, “ so it’s no 
use going into that. I must take you as I find you. Which 
indeed is what I’ve done. And you mean to say you are still 
obstinate ? ” 

“ Not obstinate. Miss, I hope.” 

“ Firm (I suppose you call it) then ? ” 

“Yes, Miss. Fixed like.” 

“ Never was an obstinate person yet, who would own to the 
word!” remarked Miss Potterson, rubbing her vexed nose: 
“ I’m sure I would, if I was obstinate; but I am a pepperer, 
which is different. Lizzie Hexam, Lizzie Hexam, think again. 
Do you know the worst of your father ? ” 

“ Do I know the worst of father? ” she repeated, opening 
her eyes. 

“ Do you know the suspicions to which your father makes 
himself liable ? Do you know the suspicions that are actually 
about, against him ? ” 

The consciousness of what he habitually did, oppressed the 
girl heavily, and she slowly cast down her eyes. 

“ Say, Lizzie. Do you know ? ” urged Miss Abbey. 

“ Please tell me what the suspicions are, Miss,” she asked 
after a silence, with her eyes upon the ground. 

“ It’s not an easy thing to tell a daughter, but it must be 
told. It is thought by some, then, that your father helps to 
their death a few of those that he finds dead.” 

The relief of hearing what she felt sure was a false sus- 


76 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


picion, in place of the expected real and true one, so light- 
ened Lizzie’s breast for the moment, that Miss Abbey was 
amazed at her demeanour. She raised her eyes quickly, shook 
her head, and, in a kind of triumph, almost laughed. 

“ They little know father who talk like that.” 

(“ She takes it,” thought Miss x\bbey, “ very quietly. She 
takes it with extraordinary quietness I ”) 

“And perhaps,” said Lizzie, as a recollection flashed upon 
her, “ it is some one who has a grudge against father; some 
one who has threatened father! Is it Riderhood, Miss ? ” 

“Well; yes it is.” 

“Yes! He was father’s partner, and father broke with 
him, and now he revenges himself. Father broke with him 
when I was by, and he was very angry at it. And besides. 
Miss Abbey! — Will you never, without strong reason, let 
pass your lips what I am going to say ? ” 

She bent forward to say it in a whisper. 

“ I promise,” said Miss Abbey. 

“ It was on the night when the Harmon murder was found 
out, through father, just above bridge. And just below bridge, 
as we were sculling home, Riderhood crept out of the dark in 
his boat. And many and many times afterwards, when such 
great pains were taken to come to the bottom of the crime, 
and it never could be come near, I thought in my own 
thoughts, could Riderhood himself have done the murder, and 
did he purposely let father find the body ? It seemed a’most 
wicked and cruel to so much as think such a thing; but now 
that he tries to throw it upon father, I go back to it as if it 
was a truth. Can it be a truth ? That was put into my mind 
by the dead ? ” 

She asked this question, rather of the fire than of the 
hostess of the Fellowship-Porters, and looked round the little 
bar with troubled eyes. 

But, Miss Potterson, as a ready schoolmistress accustomed 
to bring her pupils to book, set the matter in a light that 
was essentially of this world. 

“ You poor deluded girl,” she said, “ don’t you see that 
you can’t open your mind to particular suspicions of one of 
the two, without opening your mind to general suspicions of 
the other ? They had worked together. Their goings-on had 


CUT ADRIFT 


77 


been going on for some time. Even granting that it was as 
you have had in your thoughts, what the two had done to- 
gether would come familiar to the mind of one.’* 

“You don’t know father, Miss, when you talk like that. 
Indeed, indeed, you don’t know father.” 

“ Lizzie, Lizzie,” said Miss Potterson. “ Leave him. You 
needn’t break with him altogether, but leave him. Do well 
away from him; not because of what I have told you to-night 
— ^ we’ll pass no judgment upon that, and we’ll hope it may 
not be — but because of what I have urged on you before. No 
matter whether it’s owing to your good looks or not, I like 
you and I want to serve you. Lizzie, come under my direc- 
tion. Don’t fling yourself away, my girl, but be persuaded 
into being respectable and happy.” 

In the sound good feeling and good sense of her entreaty. 
Miss Abbey had softened into a soothing tone, and had even 
drawn her arm round the girl’s waist. But, she only replied, 
“ Thank you, thank you! I can’t. I won’t. I must not 
think of it. The harder father is borne upon, the more he 
needs me to lean on.” 

And then Miss Abbey, who, like all hard people when they 
do soften, felt that there was considerable compensation owing 
to her, underwent reaction and became frigid. 

“ I have done what I can,” she said, “ and you must go 
your way. You make your bed, and you must lie on it. 
But tell your father one thing: he must not come here any 
more.” 

“ Oh, Miss, will you forbid him the house where I know he 
is safe? ” 

“ The Fellowships,” returned Miss Abbey, “ has itself to 
look to, as well as others. It has been hard work to establish 
order here, and make the Fellowships what it is, and it is 
daily and nightly hard work to keep it so. The Fellowships 
must not have a taint upon it that may give it a bad name 
I forbid the house to Riderhood, and I forbid the house to 
Gaffer. I forbid both, equally. I find from Riderhood and 
you together, that there are suspicions against both men, and 
I’m not going to take upon myself to decide betwixt them. 
They are both tarred with a dirty brush, and I can’t have the 
lYllowships tarred with the same brush. That’s all I know.” 


78 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Good night, Miss! ” said Lizzie Hexam sorrowfully. 

“ Hah! — Good night! ” returned Miss Abbey with a shake 
of her head. 

“ Believe me, Miss Abbey, I am truly grateful all the 
same.” 

“ I can believe a good deal,” returned the stately Abbey, 
“ so ril try to believe that too, Lizzie.” 

No supper did Miss Potterson take that night, and only 
half her usual tumbler of hot Port Negus. And the female 
domestics — two robust sisters with staring black eyes, shining 
flat red faces, blunt noses, and strong black curls, like dolls 
• — interchanged the sentiment that Missis had had her hair 
combed the wrong way by somebody. And the potboy after- 
wards remarked, that he hadn’t been so rattled to bed,” 
since his late mother had systematically accelerated his retire- 
ment to rest with a poker. 

The chaining of the door behind her, as she went forth, 
disenchanted Lizzie Hexam of that first relief she had felt. 
1 he night was black and shrill, the river-side wilderness was 
melancholy, and there was a sound of casting-out, in the 
rattling of the iron links, and the grating of the bolts and 
staples under Miss Abbey’s hand. As she came beneath the 
lowering sky, a sense of being involved in a murky shade of 
Murder dropped upon her; and, as the tidal swell of the river 
broke at her feet without her seeing how it gathered, so, her 
thoughts startled her by rushing out of an unseen void and 
striking at her heart. 

Of her father’s being groundlessly suspected, she felt sure. 
Sure. Sure. And yet, repeat the words inwardly as often as 
she would, the attempt to reason out and prove that she was 
sure, always came after it and failed. Riderhood had done 
the deed, and entrapped her father. Riderhood had not done 
the deed, but had resolved in his malice to turn against her 
father the appearances that were ready to his hand to distort. 
Equally and swiftly upon either putting of the case, followed 
the frightful possibility that her father, being innocent, yet 
might come to be believed guilty. She had heard of people 
suffering Death for bloodshed of which they were aftei^v^ards 
proved pure, and those ill-fated persons were not, first, in that 
dangerous wrong in which her father stood. Then at the best, 


CUT ADRIFT 


79 


the beginning of his being set apart, whispered against, and 
avoided, was a certain fact. It dated from that very night. 
And as the great black river with its dreary shores was soon 
lost to her view in the gloom, so, she stood on the river’s 
brink unable to see into the vast blank misery of a life sus- 
pected, and fallen away from by good and bad, but knowing 
that it lay there dim before her, stretching away to the great 
ocean. Death. 

One thing only was clear to the girl’s mind. Accustomed 
from her very babyhood promptly to do the thing that could 
be done — whether to keep out weather, to ward off cold, to 
postpone hunger, or what not — she started out of her medi- 
tation, and ran home. 

The room was quiet, and the lamp burnt on the table. In 
the bunk in the corner, her brother lay asleep. She bent 
over him, softly kissed him, and came to the table. 

“ By the time of Miss Abbey’s closing, and by the run of 
the tide, it must be one. Tide’s running up. Father at 
Chiswick, wouldn’t think of coming down till after the turn, 
and that’s at half after four. I’ll call Charley at six. I shall 
hear the church clock strike, as I sit here.” 

Very quietly, she placed a chair before the scanty fire, and 
sat down in it, drawing her shawl about her. 

“ Charley’s hollow down by the flare is not there now. 
Poor Charley! ” 

The clock struck two, and the clock struck three, and the 
clock struck four, and she remained there, with a woman’s 
patience and her own purpose. When the morning was well 
on between four and five, she slipped off her shoes (that her 
going about might not wake Charley), trimmed the fire spar- 
ingly, put water on to boil, and set the table for breakfast. 
Then she went up the ladder, lamp in hand, and came down 
again, and glided about and about, making a little bundle. 
Lastly, from her pocket, and from the chimneypiece, and 
from an inverted basin on the highest shelf, she brought 
halfpence, a few sixpences, fewer shillings, and fell to labo- 
riously and noiselessly counting them, and setting aside one 
little heap. She was still so engaged, when she was startled 
by: 

“ Hal-loa! ” From her brother, sitting up in bed. 


80 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ You made me jump, Charley/^ 

“ Jump! Didn’t you make me jump, when I opened my 
eyes a moment ago, and saw you sitting there, like the ghost 
of a girl-miser, in the dead of the night! ” 

“It’s not the dead of the night, Charley. It’s nigh six in 
the morning.” 

“ Is it though ? But what are you up to, Liz ? ” 

“ Still telling your fortune, Charley.” 

“ It seems to be a precious small one, if that’s it,” said the 
boy. “ Wliat are you putting that little pile of money by 
itself for?” 

“For you, Charley.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ Get out of bed, Charley, and get washed and dressed, and 
then I’ll tell you.” 

Her composed manner, and her low distinct voice, always 
had an influence over him. His head was soon in a basin of 
water, and out of it again, and staring at her through a storm 
of towelling. 

“ I never,” towelling at himself as if he were his bitterest 
enemy, “ saw such a girl as you are. What is the move, 
Liz?” 

“ Are you almost ready for breakfast, Charley ? ” 

“ You can pour it out. Hal-loa! I say ? And a bundle ? ” 

“ And a bundle, Charley.” 

“You don’t mean it’s forme, too ? ” 

“ Yes, Charley; I do, indeed.” 

More serious of face, and more slow of action, than he had 
been, the boy completed his dressing, and came and sat down 
at the little breakfast-table, with his eyes amazedly directed 
to her face. 

“ You see, Charley dear, I have made up my mind that 
this is the right time for your going away from us. Over 
and above all the blessed change of by and by, you’ll be much 
happier, and do much better, even so soon as next month. 
Even so soon as next week.” 

“ How do you know I shall ? ” 

“ I don’t quite know how, Charley, but I do.” In spite of 
her unchanged manner of speaking, and her unchanged 
appearance of composure, she scarcely trusted herself to look 


CUT ADRIFT 


81 


at him, but kept her eyes employed on the cutting and but- 
tering of his bread, and on the mixing of his tea, and other 
such little preparations. “You must leave father to me, 
Charley — I will do what I can with him — but you must 
go-” ^ 

“ You don’t stand upon ceremony, I think,” grumbled the 
boy, throwing his bread and butter about, in an ill humour. 

She made him no answer. 

“ I tell you what,” said the boy, then bursting out into an 
angry whimpering, you’re a selfish jade, and you think 
there’s not enough for three of us, and you want to get rid of 
me.” 

‘ ^ If you believe so, Charley, — yes, then I believe too, that 
I am a selfish jade, and that I think there’s not enough for 
three of us, and that I want to get rid of you.” 

It was only when the boy rushed at her, and threw his 
arms round her neck, that she lost her self restraint. But she 
lost it then, and wept over him. 

“ Don’t cry, don’t cry! I am satisfied to go, Liz; I am 
satisfied to go. I know you send me away for my good.” 

“ O, Charley, Charley, Heaven above us knows I do!” 

“ Yes, yes. Don’t mind what I said. Don’t remember it. 
Kiss me.” 

After a silence, she loosed him to dry her eyes, and regain 
her strong quiet influence. 

“Now listen, Charley dear. We both know it must be 
done, and I alone know there is good reason for its being 
done at once. Go straight to the school, and say that you and 
I agreed upon it — that we can’t overcome father’s opposition 
— that father will never trouble them, but will never take you 
back. You are a credit to the school, and you will be a greater 
credit to it yet, and they will help you to get a living. Show 
what clothes you have brought, and what money, and say 
that I will send some more money. If I can get some in no 
other way, I will ask a little help of those two gentlemen 
who came here that night.” 

“ I say!” cried her brother quickly. “ Don’t you have it 
of that chap that took hold of me by the chin! Don’t you 
have it of that Wrayburn one!” 

Perhaps a slight additional tinge of red flashed up into her 


82 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


face and brow, as with a nod she laid a hand upon his lips to 
keep him silently attentive. 

And above all things, mind this, Charley! Be sure you 
always speak well of father. Be sure you always give father 
his full due. You can’t deny that because father has no 
learning himself he is set against it in you; but favour nothing 
else against him, and be sure you say — as you know — 
that your sister is devoted to him. And if you should ever 
happen to hear anything said against father that is new to 
you, it will not be true. Remember, Charley! It will not 
be true.” 

The boy looked at her with some doubt and surprise, but 
she went on again without heeding it. 

Above all things remember! It will not be true. I have 
nothing more to say, Charley dear, except, be good, and get 
learning, and only think of some things in the old life here, 
as if you had dreamed them in a dream last night. Good-bye, 
my Darling! ” 

Though so young, she infused into these parting words a 
love that was far more like a mother’s than a sister’s, and 
before which the boy was quite bowed down. After holding 
her to his breast with a passionate cry, he took up his bundle 
and darted out at the door, with an arm across his eyes. 

The white face of the winter day came sluggishly on, 
veiled in a frosty mist; and the shadowy ships in the river 
slowly changed to black substances; and the sun, blood-red 
on the eastern marshes behind dark masts and yards, seemed 
filled with the ruins of a forest it had set on fire. Lizzie, 
looking for her father, saw him coming, and stood upon the 
causeway that he might see her. 

He had nothing with him but his boat, and came on apace. 
A knot of those amphibious human creatures who appear to 
have some mysterious power of extracting a subsistence out of 
tidal water by looking at it, were gathered together about 
the causeway. As her father’s boat grounded, they became 
contemplative of the mud, and dispersed themselves. She 
saw that the mute avoidance had begun. 

Gaffer saw it, too, in so far that he was moved when he 
set foot on shore, to stare around him. But, he promptly 
set to work to haul up his boat, and make her fast, and take 


CUT ADRIFT 83 

the sculls and rudder and rope out of her. Carrying these, 
with Lizzie’s aid, he passed up to his dwelling. 

“Sit close to the fire, father, dear, while I cook your break- 
fast. It’s all ready for cooking, and only been waiting for 
you. You must be frozen.” 

“ Well, Lizzie, I ain’t of a glow; that’s certain. And my 
hands seemed nailed through to the sculls. See how dead 
they are!” Something suggestive in their colour, and per- 
haps in her face, struck him as he held them up; he turned 
his shoulder and held them down to the fire. 

“ You were not out in the perishing night, I hope, father? ” 

“ No, my dear. Lay aboard a barge, by a blazing coal fire. 
— Where’s that boy ? ” 

“ There’s a drop of brandy for your tea, father, if you’ll 
put it in while I turn this bit of meat. If the river was to 
get frozen, there would be a deal of distress; wouldn’t there, 
father?” 

“ Ah 1 there’s always enough of that,” said Gaffer, dropping 
the liquor into his cup from a squat black bottle, and drop- 
ping it slowly that it might seem more; “ distress is for ever 
a going about like sut in the air. — Ain’t that boy up yet? ” 

“ The meat’s ready now, father. Eat it while it’s hot and 
comfortable. After you have finished, we’ll turn round to 
the fire and talk.” 

But, he perceived that he was evaded, and, having thrown 
a hasty angry glance towards the bunk, plucked at a corner 
of her apron and asked: 

“ What’s gone with that boy ? ” 

“ Father, if you’ll begin your breakfast. I’ll sit by and tell 
you.” 

He looked at her, stirred his tea and took two or three 
gulps, then cut at his piece of hot steak with his case-knife, 
and said, eating: 

“ Now then. What’s gone with that boy? ” 

“ Don’t be angry, dear. It seems, father, that he has 
quite a gift of learning.” 

“ Unnat’ral young beggar! ” said the parent, shaking his 
knife in the air. 

“ — And that having this gift, and not being equally good 
at other things, he has made shift to get some schooling.” 


84 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Unnat’ral young beggar! ” said the parent again, with his 
former action. 

“ — And that knowing you have nothing to spare, father, 
and not wishing to be a burden on you, he gradually made 
up his mind to go seek his fortune out of learning. He went 
away this morning, father, and he cried very much at going, 
and he hoped you would forgive him.” 

“ Let him never come a nigh me to ask me my forgive 
ness,” said the father, again emphasising his words with the 
knife. Let him never come within sight of my eyes, nor yet 
within reach of my arm. His own father ain’t good enough 
for him. He’s disowned his own father. His own father, 
therefore, disowns him for ever and ever, as a unnat’ral young 
beggar.” 

He had pushed away his plate. With the natural need of 
a strong rough man in anger, to do something forcible, he 
now clutched his knife overhand and struck downward with 
it at the end of every succeeding sentence. As he would have 
struck with his own clenched fist if there had chanced to be 
nothing in it. 

“ He’s welcome to go. He’s more welcome to go than to 
stay. But let him never come back. Let him never put his 
head inside that door. And let you never speak a woi’d more 
in his favour, or you’ll disown your own father, likewise, and 
what your father says of him he’ll have to come to say of 
you. Now I see why them men yonder held aloof from me. 
They says to one another, ‘ Here comes the man as ain’t good 
enough for his own son! ’ Lizzie ! ” 

But, she stopped him with a cry. Looking at her he saw 
her, with a face quite strange to him, shrinking back against 
the wall, with her hands before her eyes. 

“ Father, don’t! I can’t bear to see you striking with it. 
Put it down! ” 

He looked at the knife; but in his astonishment he still 
held it. 

“ Father, it’s too horrible. O put it down, put it 
down! ” 

Confounded by her appearance and exclamation, he tossed 
it away, and stood up with his open hands held out before 
him. 


CUT ADRIFT 85 

** What’s come to you, Liz? Can you think I would 
strike at you with a knife ? 

“ No, father, no; you would never hurt me.” 

“ What should I hurt?” 

“ Nothing, dear father. On my knees, I am certain, in 
my heart and soul I am certain, nothing! But it was too 

dreadful to bear; for it looked ” her hands covering hei 

face again, O it looked ” 

“ What did it look like ? ” 

The recollection of his murderous figure, combining with 
her trial of last night, and her trial of the morning, caused 
her to drop at his feet, without having answered. 

He had never seen her so before. He raised her with the 
utmost tenderness, calling her the best of daughters, and 
“ my poor pretty creetur,” and laid her head upon his knee, 
and tried to restore her. But failing, he laid her head gently 
down again, got a pillow and placed it under her dark hair, 
and sought on the table for a spoonful of brandy. There 
being none left, he hurriedly caught up the empty bottle, 
and ran out at the door. 

He returned as hurriedly as he had gone, with the bottle 
still empty. He kneeled down by her, took her head on his 
arm, and moistened her lips with a little water into which 
he had dipped his fingers: saying, fiercely, as he looked 
around, now over this shoulder, now over that: 

Have we got a pest in the house? Is there summ’at 
deadly sticking to my clothes? What’s let loose upon us? 
Who loosed it?” 


CHAPTER VII 


MR. WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF 

Silas Wegg, being on his road to the Roman Empire, 
approaches it by way of Clerkenwell. The time is early in 
the evening; the weather moist and raw. Mr. Wegg finds 
leisure to make a little circuit, by reason that he folds his 
screen early, now that he combines another source of income 
with it, and also that he feels it due to himself to be anx- 
iously expected at the Bower. Boffin will get all the eagerer 
for waiting a bit,” says Silas, screwing up, as he stumps 
along, first his right eye, and then his left. Which is some- 
thing superfluous in him, for Nature has already screwed 
both pretty tight. 

“ If I get on with him as I expect to get on,” Silas 
pursues, stumping and meditating, it wouldn’t become me 
to leave it here. It wouldn’t be respectable.” Animated by 
this reflection, he stumps faster, and looks a long way before 
him, as a man with an ambitious project in abeyance often 
will do. 

Aware of a working-jeweller population taking sanctuary 
about the church in Clerkenwell, Mr. Wegg is conscious of 
an interest in, and a respect for, the neighbourhood. But 
his sensations in this regard halt as to their strict morality, 
as he halts in his gait; for they suggest the delights of a coat 
of invisibility in which to walk off safely with the precious 
stones and watch-cases, but stop short of any compunction 
for the people who would lose the same. 

Not, however, towards the “ shops ” where cunning artifi- 
cers work in pearls and diamonds and gold and silver, mak- 
ing their hands so rich, that the enriched water in which they 
wash them is bought for the refiners; — not towards these 
does Mr. Wegg stump, but towards the poorer shops of small 


MR. WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF 


87 


retail traders in commodities to eat and drink and keep folks 
warm, and of Italian frame-makers, and of barbers, and of 
brokers, and of dealers in dogs and singing-birds. From 
these, in a narrow and a dirty street devoted to such callings, 
Mr. Wegg selects one dark shop-window with a tallow candle 
dimly burning in it, surrounded by a muddle of objects, 
vaguely resembling pieces of leather and dry stick, but among 
which nothing is resolvable into anything distinct, save the 
candle itself in its old tin candlestick, and two preserved 
frogs fighting a small-sword duel. Stumping with fresh 
vigour, he goes in at the dark greasy entry, pushes a little 
greasy dark reluctant side-door, and follows the door into 
the little dark greasy shop. It is so dark that nothing can 
be made out in it, over a little counter, but another tallow 
candle in another old tin candlestick, close to the face of a 
man stooping low in a chair. 

Mr. Wegg nods to the face, ** Good evening.’' 

The face looking up is a sallow face with weak eyes, sur- 
mounted by a tangle of reddish-dusty hair. The owner of 
the face has no cravat on, and has opened his tumbled shirt- 
collar to work with the more ease. For the same reason he 
has no coat on: only a loose waistcoat over his yellow linen. 
His eyes are like the over-tired eyes of an engraver, but he 
is not that; his expression and stoop are like those of a shoe- 
maker, but he is not that. 

“ Good evening, Mr. Venus. Don’t you remember? ” 

With slowly dawning remembrance, Mr. Venus rises, and 
holds his candle over the little counter, and holds it down 
towards the legs, natural and artificial, of Mr. Wegg. 

“ To be sure ! ” he says then. “ How do you do ? ” 

“ Wegg, you know,” that gentleman explains. 

“Yes, yes,” says the other. “Hospital amputation?” 

“ Just so,” says Mr. Wegg. 

“ Yes, yes,” quoth Venus. “ How do you do ? Sit down 
by the fire, and warm your — your other one.” 

The little counter being so short a counter that it leaves 
the fireplace, which would have been behind it if it had been 
longer, accessible, Mr. Wegg sits down on a box in front of 
the fire, and inhales a warm and comfortable smell which is 
not the smell of the shop. “ For that,” Mr. Wegg inwardly 


88 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


decides, as he takes a corrective sniff or two, “ is musty, 
leathery, feathery, cellary, gluey, gummy, and,” with another 
sniff, “ as it might be, strong of old pairs of bellows.” 

“ My tea is drawing, and my muffin is on the hob, Mr. 
Wegg; will you partake?” 

It being one of Mr. Wegg’s guiding rules in life always to 
partake, he says he will. But, the little shop is so excessively 
dark, is stuck so full of black shelves and brackets and nooks 
and corners, that he sees Mr. Venus’s cup and saucer only 
because it is close under the candle, and does not see from 
what mysterious recess Mr. Venus produces another for him- 
self, until it is under his nose. Concurrently, Wegg perceives 
a pretty little dead bird lying on the counter, with its head 
drooping on one side against the rim of Mr. Venus’s saucer, 
and a long stiff wire piercing its breast. As if it were Cock 
Robin, the hero of the Ballad, and Mr. Venus were the 
sparrow with his bow and arrow, and Mr. Wegg were the fly 
with his little eye. 

Mr. Venus dives, and produces another muffin, yet un- 
toasted; taking the arrow out of the breast of Cock Robin, 
he proceeds to toast it on the end of that cruel instrument. 
When it is brown, he dives again and produces butter, with 
which he completes his work. 

Mr. Wegg, as an artful man who is sure of his supper 
by and by, presses muffin on his host to soothe him into a 
compliant state of mind, or, as one might say, to grease his 
works. As the muffins disappear, little by little, the black 
shelves and nooks and comers begin to appear, and Mr. Wegg 
gradually acquires an imperfect notion that over against him 
on the chimneypiece is a Hindoo baby in a bottle, curved 
up with his big head tucked under him, as though he would 
instantly throw a summersault if the bottle were large 
enough. 

When he deems Mr. Venus’s wheels sufficiently lubricated, 
Mr. Wegg approaches his object by asking, as he lightly 
taps his hands together, to express an undesigning frame of 
mind: 

And how have I been getting on, this long time, Mr. 
Venus?” 

“ Very bad,” says Mr. Venus, uncompromisingly. 


MR. WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF 89 

“ What? Am I still at home?” asks Wegg, with an air 
of surprise. 

Always at home.” 

This would seem to be secretly agreeable to Wegg, but he 
veils his feelings, and observes, ‘‘ Strange. To what do you 
attribute it?” 

“ I don’t know,” replies Venus, who is a haggard melan- 
choly man, speaking in a weak voice of querulous complaint, 
“ to what to attribute it, Mr. Wegg. I can’t work you into a 
miscellaneous one, nohow. Do what I will, you can’t be got 
to fit. Anybody with a passable knowledge would pick you 
out at a look, and say — ^ No go! Don’t match! ’ ” 

“ Well, but hang it, Mr. Venus,” Wegg expostulates with 
some little irritation, “ that can’t be personal and peculiar in 
me. It must often happen with miscellaneous ones.” 

‘‘ With ribs (I grant you) always. But not else. When I 
prepare a miscellaneous one, I know beforehand that I can’t 
keep to nature, and be miscellaneous with ribs, because every 
man has his own ribs, and no other man’s will go with them; 
but elseways I can be miscellaneous. I have just sent home 
a Beauty — a perfect Beauty — to a school of art. One leg 
Belgian, one leg English, and the pickings of eight other 
people in it. Talk of not being qualified to be miscellaneous! 
By rights you ought to be, Mr. Wegg.” 

Silas looks as hard at his one leg as he can in the dim 
light, and after a pause sulkily opines “ that it must be the 
fault of the other people. Or how do you mean to say it 
comes about ? ” he demands impatiently. 

“ I don’t know how it comes about. Stand up a minute. 
Hold the light.” Mr. Venus takes from a corner by his chair, 
the bones of a leg and foot, beautifully pure, and put to- 
gether with exquisite neatness. These he compares with Mr. 
Wegg’s leg; that gentleman looking on, as if he were being 
measured for a riding-boot. No, I don’t know how it is, 
but so it is. You have got a twist in that bone, to the best 
of my belief. I never saw the likes of you.” 

Mr. Wegg having looked distrustfully at his own limb, 
and suspiciously at the pattern with which it has been com- 
pared, makes the point: 

I’ll bet a pound that ain’t an English one! ” 


90 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ An easy wager, when we run so much into foreign ! No, 
it belongs to that French gentleman/’ 

As he nods towards a point of darkness behind Mr. Wegg, 
the latter, with a slight start, looks round for “ that French 
gentleman,” whom he at length descries to be represented (in 
a veiy workmanlike manner) by his ribs only, standing on a 
shelf in another corner, like a piece of armour or a pair of 
stays. 

“ Oh! ” says Mr. Wegg, with a sort of sense of being in- 
troduced; I dare say you were all right enough in your 
own country, but I hope no objections will be taken to my 
saying that the Frenchman was never yet born as I should 
wish to match.” 

At this moment the greasy door is violently pushed inward, 
and a boy follows it, who says, after having let it slam: 

“ Come for the stuffed canary.” 

It’s three and ninepence,” returns Venus; “ have you got 
the money ? ” 

The boy produces four shillings. Mr. Venus, always in ex- 
ceedingly low spirits, and making whimpering sounds, peers 
about for the stuffed canary. On his taking the candle to 
assist his search, Mr. Wegg observes that he has a convenient 
little shelf near his knees, exclusively appropriated to skeleton 
hands, which have very much the appearance of wanting to 
lay hold of him. From these Mr. Venus rescues the canary 
in a glass case, and shows it to the boy. 

There! ” he whimpers. “ There’s animation! On a twig, 
making up his mind to hop! Take care of him; he’s a lovely 
specimen. — And three is four.” 

The boy gathers up his change and has pulled the door 
open by a leather strap nailed to it for the purpose, when 
Venus cries out: 

“ Stop him! Come back, you young villain! You’ve got 
a tooth among them halfpence.” 

“ How was I to know I’d got it? You giv it me. I don’t 
want none of youT teeth, I’ve got enough of my own.” So 
the boy pipes, as he selects it from his change, and throws it 
on the counter. 

“ Don’t sauce me, in the wicious pride of your youth,” Mr. 
Venus retorts pathetically. “ Don’t hit me because you see 









MR. WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF 


91 


Fm down. I’m low enough without that. It dropped into 
the till, I suppose. They drop into everything. There was 
two in the coffee-pot at breakfast-time. Molars.” 

“ Very well, then,” argues the boy, what do you call 
names for? ” 

To which Mr. Venus only replies, shaking his shock of 
dusty hair, and winking his weak eyes, “ Don’t sauce me, 
in the wicious pride of your youth; don’t hit me, because 
you see I’m down. You’ve no idea how small you’d come 
out, if I had the articulating of you.” 

This consideration seems to have its effect upon the boy, 
for he goes out grumbling. 

“ Oh dear me, dear me! ” sighs Mr. Venus, heavily, snuffing 
the candle, ‘‘ the world that appeared so flowery has ceased 
to blow! You’re casting your eye round the shop, Mr. 
Wegg. Let me show you a light. My working bench. My 
young man’s bench. A Wice. Tools. Bones, warious. 
Skulls, warious. Preserved Indian baby. African ditto. 
Bottled preparations, warious. Everything within reach of 
your hand, in good preservation. The mouldy ones atop. 
What’s in those hampers over them again, I don’t quite re- 
member. Say, human warious. Cats. Articulated English 
baby. Dogs. Ducks. Glass eyes, warious. Mummied 
bird. Dried cuticle, warious. Oh dear me! That’s the 
general panoramic view.” 

Having so held and waved the candle as that all these 
heterogeneous objects seemed to come forward obediently 
when they were named, and then retire again, Mr. Venus 
despondently repeats, “ Oh dear me, dear me! ” resumes his 
seat, and with drooping despondency upon him, falls to 
pouring himself out more tea. 

“ Where am I ? ” asks Mr. Wegg. 

“ You’re somewhere in the back shop across the yard, sir; 
and speaking quite candidly, I wish I’d never bought you of 
the Hospital Porter.” 

“ Now, look here, what did you give for me? ” 

“ Well,” replies Venus, blowing his tea: his head and face 
peering out of the darkness, over the smoke of it, as if he 
were modernising the old original rise in his family: you 
were one of a warious lot, and I don’t know.” 


92 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Silas puts his point in the improved form of “ What will 
you take for me ? ” 

“ Well,’^ replies Venus, still blowing his tea, I’m not pre- 
pared, at a moment’s notice, to tell you, Mr. Wegg.” 

“ Come! According to your own account. I’m not worth 
much,” Wegg reasons persuasively. 

“Not for miscellaneous working in, I grant you, Mr. Wegg; 

but you might turn out valuable yet, as a ” here Mr. 

Venus takes a gulp of tea, so hot that it makes him choke, 
and sets his weak eyes watering: “ as a Monstrosity, if you’ll 
excuse me.” 

Repressing an indignant look, indicative of anything but a 
disposition to excuse him, Silas pursues his point. 

“ I think you know me, Mr. Venus, and I think you know 
I never bargain.” 

Mr. Venus takes gulps of hot tea, shutting his eyes at 
every gulp, and opening them again in a spasmodic manner; 
but does not commit himself to assent. 

“ I have a prospect of getting on in life and elevating my- 
self by my own independent exertions,” says Wegg, feelingly, 
“ and I shouldn’t like — I tell you openly I should not like — 
under such circumstances, to be what I may call dispersed, a 
part of me here, and a part of me there, but should wish to 
collect myself like a genteel person.” 

“ It’s a prospect at present, is it, Mr. Wegg? Then you 
haven’t got the money for a deal about you? Then I’ll tell 
you what I’ll do with you; I’ll hold you over. I am a man 
of my word, and you needn’t be afraid of my disposing of 
you. I’ll hold you over. That’s a promise. Oh dear me, 
dear me! ” 

Fain to accept his promise, and wishing to propitiate him, 
Mr. Wegg looks on as he sighs and pours himself out more 
tea, and then says, trying to get a sympathetic tone into his 
voice : 

“ You seem very low, Mr. Venus. Is business bad ? ” 

“ Never was so good.” 

“ Is your hand out at all ? ” 

“ Never was so well in. Mr. Wegg, I’m not only first in 
the trade, but I’m the trade. You may go and buy a skeleton 
at the West End if you like, and pay the West End price, 


MR. WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF 


93 


but it’ll be my putting together. I’ve as much to do as I 
can possibly do, with the assistance of my young man, and 
I take a pride and pleasure in it.” 

Mr. Venus thus delivers himself, his right hand extended, 
his smoking saucer in his left hand, protesting as though he 
were going to burst into a flood of tears. 

“ That ain’t a state of things to make you low, Mr. 
Venus.” 

‘‘ Mr. Wegg, I know it ain’t. Mr. Wegg, not to name my- 
self as a workman without an equal, I’ve gone on improving 
myself in my knowledge of Anatomy, till both by sight and 
by name I’m perfect. Mr. Wegg, if you was brought here 
loose in a bag to be articulated. I’d name your smallest bones 
blindfold equally with your largest, as fast as I could pick 
’em out, and I’d sort ’em all, and sort your w'ertebrse, in a 
manner that would equally surprise and charm you.” 

“ Well,” remarks Silas (though not quite so readily as last 
time), that ain’t a state of things to be low about. — Not 
for you to be low about, leastways.” 

“ Mr. Wegg, I know it ain’t; Mr. Wegg, I know it ain’t. 
But it’s the heart that lowers me, it is the heart! Be so 
good as take and read that card out loud.” 

Silas receives one from his hand, which Venus takes from a 
wonderful litter in a drawer, and putting on his spectacles, 
reads : 

“ ^ Mr. Venus,’ ” 

Yes. Go on.” 

“ ^ Preserver of Animals and Birds,’ ” 

^‘Yes. Goon.” 

‘ Articulator of human bones.’ ” 

“ That’s it,” with a groan. “ That’s it! Mr. Wegg, I’m 
thirty-two, and a bachelor. Mr. Wegg, I love her. Mr. 
Wegg, she is worth/'of being loved by a Potentate! ” Here 
Silas is rather alarmed by Mr. Venus springing to his feet 
in the hurry of his spirits, and haggardly confronting him 
with his hand on his coat collar; but Mr. Venus, begging 
pardon, sits down again, saying, with the calmness of 
despair, “ She objects to the business.” 

“ Does she know the profits of it? ” 

“ She knows the profits of it, but she don’t appreciate the 


94 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


art of it, and she objects to it. ‘ I do not wish,’ she writes 
in her own handwriting, ‘ to regard myself, nor yet to be 
regarded, in that bony light.’ ” 

Mr. Venus pours himself out more tea, with a look and in 
an attitude of the deepest desolation. 

“ And so a man climbs to the top of the tree, Mr. Wegg, 
only to see that there’s no look-out when he’s up there! I 
sit here of a night surrounded by the lovely trophies of my 
art, and what have they done for me ? Ruined me. Brought 
me to the pass of being informed. that ‘ she does not wish to 
regard herself, nor yet to be regarded, in that bony light! ’ ” 
Having repeated the fatal expressions, Mr. Venus drinks 
more tea by gulps, and offers an explanation of his doing 
so. 

“ It lowers me. When I’m equally lowered all over, 
lethargy sets in. By sticking to it till one or two in the morn- 
ing, I get oblivion. Don’t let me detain you, Mr. Wegg. 
I’m not company for any one.” 

“It is not on that account,” says Silas, rising, “ but 
because I’ve got an appointment. It’s time I was at Har- 
mon’s.” 

“Eh?” said Mr. Venus. “Harmon’s, up Battle Bridge 
way ? ” 

Mr. Wegg admits that he is bound for that port. 

“ You ought to be in a good thing, if you’ve worked your- 
self in there. There’s lots of money going there.” 

“ To think,” says Silas, “ that you should catch it up so 
quick, and know about it. Wonderful! ” 

“ Not at all, Mr. Wegg. The old gentleman wanted to 
know the nature and worth of everything that was found in 
the dust; and many’s the bone, and feather, and what not, 
that he’s brought to me.” 

“ Really, now! ” 

“Yes. (Oh dear me, dear me!) And he’s buried quite in 
this neighbourhood, you know. Over yonder.” 

Mr. Wegg does not know, but he makes as if he did, by 
responsively nodding his head. He also follows with his eyes 
the toss of Venus’s head: as if to seek a direction to over 
yonder. 

“ I took an interest in that discovery in the river,” says 


MR. WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF 95 

Venus. (She hadn’t written her cutting refusal at that 
time.) I’ve got up there never mind, though.” 

He had raised the candle at arm’s length towards one of 
the dark shelves, and Mr. Wegg had turned to look, when he 
broke off. 

“ The old gentleman was well known all round here. There 
used to be stories about his having hidden all kinds of prop- 
erty in those dust-mounds. I suppose there was nothing 
in ’em. Probably you know, Mr. Wegg ? ” 

“ Nothing in ’em,” says Wegg, who has never heard a word 
of this before. 

“ Don’t let me detain you. Good night!” 

The unfortunate Mr. Venus gives him a shake of the hand 
with a shake of his own head, and drooping down in his 
chair, proceeds to pour himself out more tea. 

Mr. Wegg, looking back over his shoulder as he pulls the 
door open by the strap, notices that the movement so shakes 
the crazy shop, and so shakes a momentary flare out of the 
candle, as that the babies — Hindoo, African, and British — 
the ‘‘ human warious,” the French gentleman, the green-glass- 
eyed cats, the dogs, the ducks, and all the rest of the collection, 
show for an instant as if paralytically animated; while even 
poor little Cock Robin at Mr. Venus’s elbow turns over on 
his innocent side. Next moment, Mr. Wegg is stumping 
under the gaslights and through the mud. 


CHAPTER VIII 


MR. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 

Whosoever had gone out of Fleet Street into the Temple 
at the date of this history, and had wandered disconsolate 
about the Temple until he stumbled on a dismal churchyard, 
and had looked up at the dismal windows commanding that 
churchyard until at the most dismal window of them all he 
saw a dismal boy, would in him have beheld, at one grand 
comprehensive swoop of the eye, the managing clerk, junior 
clerk, common-law clerk, conveyancing clerk, chancery clerk, 
every refinement and department of clerk, of Mr. Morti- 
mer Lightwood, erewhile called in the newspapers eminent 
solicitor. 

Mr. Boffin having been several times in communication 
with this clerkly essence, both on its own ground and at the 
Bower, had no difficulty in identifying it when he saw it up 
in its dusty eyrie. To the second floor on which the window 
was situated, he ascended, much preoccupied in mind by the 
uncertainties besetting the Roman Empire, and much regret- 
ting the death of the amiable Pertinax; who only last night 
had left the Imperial affairs in a state of great confusion, by 
falling a victim to the fury of the praetorian guards. 

“Morning, morning, morning!’' said Mr. Boffin, with a 
wave of his hand, as the office door was opened by the dismal 
boy, whose appropriate name was Blight. “Governor in ? ” 

“ Mr. Lightwood gave you an appointment, sir, I think ? ” 

“ I don’t want him to give it, you know,” returned Mr. 
Boffin; “ I’ll pay my way, my boy.” 

“ No doubt, sir. Would you walk in ? Mr. Lightwood 
ain’t in at the present moment, but I expect him back very 
shortly. Would you take a seat in Mr. Lightwood’s room, 
sir, while I look over our Appointment Book?” Young 


MR. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 


97 


Blight made a great show of fetching from his desk a long 
thin manuscript volume with a brown paper cover, and run- 
ning his finger down the day’s appointments, murmuring, 
“ Mr. Aggs, Mr. Baggs, Mr. Caggs, Mr. Daggs, Mr. Faggs, 
Mr. Gaggs, Mr. Boffin. Yes, sir, quite right. You are a 
little before your time, sir. Mr. Lightwood will be in di- 
rectly.” 

“ Fm not in a hurry,” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ Thank you, sir. Fll take the opportunity, if you please, 
of entering your name in our Callers’ Book for the day.” 
Young Blight made another great show of changing the 
volume, taking up a pen, sucking it, dipping it, and running 
over previous entries before he wrote. As, “ Mr. Alley, Mr. 
Bailey, Mr. Galley, Mr. Dailey, Mr. Falley, Mr. Galley, Mr. 
Halley, Mr. Lalley, Mr. Malley. And Mr. Boffin.” 

“ Strict system here; eh, my lad ? ” said Mr. Boffin, as he 
was booked. 

“ Yes, sir,” returned the boy. “ I couldn’t get on without 
it.’' 

By which he probably meant that his mind would have 
been shattered to pieces without this fiction of an occupation. 
Wearing in his solitary confinement no fetters that he could 
polish, and being provided with no drinking-cup that he could 
carve, he had fallen on the device of ringing alphabetical 
changes into the two volumes in question, or of entering vast 
numbers of persons out of the Directory as transacting busi- 
ness with Mr. Lightwood. It was the more necessary for his 
spirits, because, being of a sensitive temperament, he was apt 
to consider it personally disgraceful to himself that his master 
had no clients. 

“ How long have you been in the law, now? ” asked Mr. 
Boffin, with a pounce, in his usual Inquisitive way. 

“ I’ve been in the law, now, sir, about three years.” 

“ Must have been as good as born in it! ” said Mr. Boffin, 
with admiration. “ Do you like it? ” 

“ I don’t mind it much,” returned young Blight, heaving a 
sigh, as if its bitterness were past. 

“What wages do you get?” 

“ Half what I could wish,” replied young Blight. 

“ What’s the whole that you could wish ? ” 


98 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Fifteen shillings a week,” said the boy. 

“ About how long might it take you now, at a average rate 
of going, to be a Judge ? ” asked Mr. Boffin, after surveying 
his small stature in silence. 

The boy answered that he had not yet quite worked out 
that little calculation. 

“ I suppose there’s nothing to prevent your going in for 
it?” said Mr. Boffin. 

The boy virtually replied that as he had the honour to be a 
Briton who never, never, never, there was nothing to prevent 
his going in for it. Yet he seemed inclined to suspect that 
there might be something to prevent his coming out with it. 

“ Would a couple of pound help you up at all ? ” asked Mr. 
Boffin. 

On this head, young Blight had no doubt whatever, so Mr. 
Boffin made him a present of that sum of money, and thanked 
him for his attention to his (Mr. Boffin’s) affairs, which, he 
added, were now, he believed, as good as settled. 

Then Mr. Boffin, with his stick at his ear, like a Familiar 
Spirit explaining the office to him, sat staring at a little book- 
case of Law Practice and Law Reports, and at a window, and 
at an empty blue bag, and at a stick of sealing-wax, and a pen, 
and a box of wafers, and an apple, and a writing-pad — all 
very dusty — and at a number of inky smears and blots, and 
at an imperfectly-disguised gun-case pretending to be some- 
thing legal, and at an iron box labelled Harmon Estate, until 
Mr. Light wood appeared. 

Mr. Lightwood explained that he came from the proctor’s, 
with whom he had been engaged in transacting Mr. Boffin’s 
affairs. 

“ And they seem to have taken a deal out of you! ” said 
Mr. Boffin, with commiseration. 

Mr. Lightwood, without explaining that his weariness was 
chronic, proceeded with his exposition that, all forms of law 
having been at length complied with, will of Harmon deceased 
haying been proved, death of Harmon next inheriting having 
been proved, &:c., and so forth. Court of Chancery having 
been moved, &c., and so forth, he, Mr. Lightwood, had now 
the great gratification, honour, and happiness, again &c. and 
so forth, of congratulating Mr. Boffin on coming into pos- 


MR. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 


99 


session, as residuary legatee, of upwards of one hundred 
thousand pounds, standing in the books of the Governor 
and Company of the Bank of England, again &c. and so 
forth. 

“ And what is particularly eligible in the property, Mr. 
Boffin, is, that it involves no trouble. There are no estates 
to manage, no rents to return so much per cent, upon in 
bad times (which is an extremely dear way of getting your 
name into the newspapers), no voters to become parboiled in 
hot water with, no agents to take the cream off the milk 
before it comes to table. You could put the whole in a 
cash-box to-morrow morning, and take it with you to — say, 
to the Rocky Mountains. Inasmuch as every man,” con- 
cluded Mr. Lightwood, with an indolent smile, “ appears to 
be under a fatal spell which obliges him, sooner or later, to 
mention the Rocky Mountains in a tone of extreme familiarity 
to some other man, I hope you’ll excuse my pressing you into 
the service of that gigantic range of geographical bores.” 

Without following this last remark very closely, Mr. Boffin 
cast his perplexed gaze first at the ceiling, and then at the 
carpet. 

“ Well,” he remarked, “ I don’t know what to say about 
it, I am sure. I was a’most as well as I was. It’s a great 
lot to take care of.” 

“ My dear Mr. Boffin, then don't take care of it! ” 

“ Eh ? ” said that gentleman. 

‘‘ Speaking now,” returned Mortimer, with the irrespon- 
sible imbecility of a private individual, and not with the 
profundity of a professional adviser, I should say that if the 
circumstance of its being too much, weighs upon your mind, 
you have the haven of consolation open to you that you can 
easily make it less. And if you should be apprehensive of 
the trouble of doing so, there is the further haven of conso- 
lation that any number of people will take the trouble off 
your hands.” 

“Well! I don’t quite see it,” retorted Mr. Boffin, still 
perplexed. “ That’s not satisfactory, you know, what you’re 
a-saying.” 

“ Is Anything satisfactory, Mr. Boffin? ” asked Mortimer, 
raising his eyebrows. 


100 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I used to find it so,” answered Mr. Boffin, with a wistful 
look. “ While I was foreman at the Bower — afore it was 
the Bower — I considered the business very satisfactory. The 
old man was a awful Tartar (saying it. I’m sure, without 
disrespect to his memory), but the business was a pleasant 
one to look after, from before daylight to past dark. It’s 
a’ most a pity,” said Mr. Boffin, rubbing his ear, “ that he 
ever went and made so much money. It would have been 
better for him if he hadn’t so given himself up to it. You 
may depend upon it,” making the discovery all of a sudden, 
“ that lie found it a great lot to take care of! ” 

Mr. Lightwood coughed, not convinced. 

“ And speaking of satisfactory,” pursued Mr. Boffin, “ why, 
Lord save us! when we come to take it to pieces, bit by bit, 
where’s the satisfactoriness of the money as yet? When the 
old man ‘does right the poor boy after all, the poor boy gets 
no good of it. He gets made away with, at the moment 
when he’s lifting (as one may say) the cup and sarser to his 
lips. Mr. Lightwood, I will now name to you, that on behalf 
of the poor dear boy, me and Mrs. Boffin have stood out 
against the old man times out of number, till he has called 
us every name he could lay his tongue to. I have seen him, 
after Mrs. Boffin has given him her mind respecting the 
claims of the nat’ral affections, catch off Mrs. Boffin’s bonnet 
(she wore, in general, a black straw, perched as a matter of 
convenience on the top of her head), and send it spinning 
across the yard. I have indeed. And once, when he did 
this in a manner that amounted to personal, I should have 
given him a rattler for himself, if Mrs. Boffin hadn’t thrown 
herself betwixt us, and received flush on the temple. Which 
dropped her, Mr. Lightwood. Dropped her.” 

Mr. Lightwood murmured “Equal honour — Mrs. Bof- 
fin’s head and heart.” 

“ You understand; I name this,” pursued Mr. Boffin, “ to 
show you, now the affairs are wound up, that me and Mrs. 
Boffin have ever stood, as we were in Christian honour bound, 
the children’s friend. Me and Mrs. Boffin stood the poor 
girl’s friend ; me and Mrs. Boffin stood the poor boy’s friend ; 
me and Mrs. Boffin up and faced the old man when we 
momently expected to be turned out for our pains. As to 


MR. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 


101 


ivlrs. Boffin,” said Mr. Boffin, lowering his voice, “ she 
mightn’t wish it mentioned now she’s Fashionable, but she 
went so far as to tell him, in my presence, he was a flinty- 
hearted rascal.” 

Mr. Lightwood murmured, “ Vigorous Saxon spirit — Mrs. 
Boffin’s ancestors — bowmen — Agincourt and Cressy.” 

“ The last time me and Mrs. Boffin saw the poor boy,” said 
Mr. Boffin, warming (as fat usually does), with a tendency to 
melt, he was a child of seven year old. For when he come 
back to make intercession for his sister, me and Mrs. Boffin 
were away overlooking a country contract which was to be 
sifted before carted, and he was come and gone in a single 
hour. I say he was a child of seven year old. He was going 
away, all alone and forlorn, to that foreign school, and he 
come into our place, situate up the yard of the present Bower, 
to have a warm at our fire. There was his little scanty 
travelling clothes upon him. There was his little scanty box 
outside in the shivering wind, which I was going to carry for 
him down to the steamboat, as the old man wouldn’t hear of 
allowing a sixpence coach-money. Mrs. Boffin, then quite a 
young woman and a pictur of a full-blown rose, stands him 
by her, kneels down at the fire, warms her two open hands, 
and falls to rubbing his cheeks; but seeing the tears come 
into the child’s eyes, the tears come fast into her own, and 
she holds him round the neck, like as if she was prote,cting 
him, and cries to me, ‘ Fd give the wide wide world, I would, 
to run away with him!’ I don’t say but what it cut me, 
and but what it at the same time heightened my feelings of 
admiration for Mrs. Boffin. The poor child clings to her for 
awhile, as she clings to him, and then, when the old man 
calls, he says ‘ I must go! God bless you! ’ and for a moment 
rests his heart against her bosom, and looks up at both of us, 
as if it was in pain — in agony. Such a look! I went aboard 
with him (I gave him first what little treat I thought he’d 
like), and I left him when he had fallen asleep in his berth, 
and I came back to Mrs. Boffin. But tell her what I would 
of how I had left him, it all went for nothing, for, according 
to her thoughts, he never changed that look that he had 
looked up at us two. But it did one piece of good. Mrs. 
Boffin and me had no child of our own, and had sometimes 


102 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


wished that how we had one. But not now. ‘ We might 
both of us die/ says Mrs. Boffin, ‘ and other eyes might see 
that lonely look in our child.’ So of a night, when it was 
very cold, or when the wind roared, or the rain dripped heavy, 
she would wake sobbing, and call out in a fluster, ‘ Don’t 
you see the poor child’s face? O shelter the poor child ’ — 
till in course of years it gently wore out, as many things do.” 

“ My dear Mr. Boffin, everything wears to rags,” said 
Mortimer, with a light laugh. 

“ I won’t go so far as to say everything,” returned Mr. 
Boffin, on whom his manner seemed to grate, “ because there’s 
some things that I never found among the dust. Well, sir. 
So Mrs. Boffin and me grow older and older in the old man’s 
service, living and working pretty hard in it, till the old man 
is discovered dead in his bed. Then Mrs. Boffin and me seal 
up his box, always standing on the table at the side of his 
bed, and having frequently heerd tell of the Temple as a 
spot where lawyer’s dust is contracted for, I come down here 
in search of a lawyer to advise, and I see your young man 
up at his present elevation, chopping at the flies on the 
window-sill with his penknife, and I give him a Hoy! not 
then having the pleasure of your acquaintance, and by that 
means come to gain the honour. Then you, and the gentle- 
man in the uncomfortable neckcloth under the little archway 
in Saint Paul’s Churchyard ” 

“ Doctors’ Commons,” observed Lightwood. 

I understood it was another name,” said Mr. Boffin, 
pausing, “ but you know best. Then you and Doctor Scom- 
mons, you go to work, and you do the thing that’s proper, 
and you and Doctor S. take steps for finding out the poor 
boy, and at last you do find out the poor boy, and me and 
Mrs. Boffin often exchange the observation, ‘ We shall 
see him again, under happy circumstances.’ But it was 
never to be; and the want of satisfactoriness is, that after 
all the money never gets to him.” 

“But it gets,” remarked Lightwood, with a languid in- 
clination of the head, “ into excellent hands.” 

“ It gets into the hands of me and Mrs. Boffin only this 
very day and hour, and that’s what I’m working round to, 
having waited for this day and hour a’ purpose. Mr. Light- 


MR. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 


103 


wood, here has been a wicked cruel murder. By that murder 
me and Mrs. Boffin mysteriously profit. For the apprehension 
and conviction of the murderer, we offer a reward of one 
tithe of the property — a reward of Ten Thousand 
Pound.” 

“ Mr. Boffin, it’s too much.” 

“ Mr. Lightwood, me and Mrs. Boffin have fixed the sum 
together, and we stand to it.” 

“ But let me represent to you,” returned Lightwood, 
“ speaking now with professional profundity, and not with 
individual imbecility, that the offer of such an immense 
reward is a temptation to forced suspicion, forced construc- 
tion of circumstances, strained accusation, a whole tool-box 
of edged tools.” 

“ Well,” said Mr. Boffin, a little staggered, “ that’s the 
sum we put o’ one side for the purpose. Whether it shall be 
openly declared in the new notices that must now be put 
about in our names ” 

“ In your name, Mr. Boffin; in your name.” 

“ Very well; in my name, which is the same as Mrs. 
Boffin’s, and means both of us, is to be considered in drawing 
’em up. But this is the first instruction that I, as the owner 
of the property, give to my lawyer on coming into it.” 

“ Your lawyer, Mr. Boffin,” returned Lightwood, making a 
very short note of it with a very rusty pen, “ has the grati- 
fication of taking the instruction. There is another?” 

“ There is just one other, and no more. Make me as com- 
pact a little will as can be reconciled with tightness, leaving 
the whole of the property to ‘ my beloved wife, Henerietty 
Boffin, sole executrix.’ Make it as short as you can, using 
those words; but make it tight.” 

At some loss to fathom Mr. Boffin’s notions of a tight will, 
Lightwood felt his way. 

“ I beg your pardon, but professional profundity must be 
exact. When you say tight ” 

“ I mean tight,” Mr. Boffin explained. 

“ Exactly so. And nothing can be more laudable. But 
is the tightness to bind Mrs. Boffin to any and what con- 
ditions ? ” 

“Bind Mrs. Boffin?” interposed her husband. “ Nol 


104 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


What are you thinking of? What I want is, to make it all 
hers so tight as that her hold of it can’t be loosed.” 

“Hers freely, to do what she likes with? Hers abso- 
lutely?” 

“ Absolutely ? ” repeated Mr. Boffin, with a short sturdy 
laugh. “Hah! I should think so! It would be handsome 
in me to begin to bind Mrs. Boffin at this time of day! ” 

So that instruction, too, was taken by Mr. Lightwood; 
and Mr. Lightwood, having taken it, was in the act of show- 
ing Mr. Boffin out, when Mr. Eugene Wrayburn almost 
jostled him in the doorway. Consequently Mr. Lightwood 
said, in his cool manner, “ Let me make you two known to 
one another,” and further signified that Mr. Wrayburn was 
counsel learned in the law, and that, partly in the way of 
business and partly in the way of pleasure, he had imparted 
to Mr. Wrayburn some of the interesting facts of Mr. Boffin’s 
biography. 

“ Delighted,” said Eugene — though he didn’t look so — 
“ to know Mr. Boffin.” 

“ Thankee, sir, thankee,” returned that gentleman. “ And 
how do you like the law ? ” 

“ A not particularly,” returned Eugene. 

“ Too dry for you, eh ? Well, I suppose it wants some 
years of sticking to, before you master it. But there’s noth- 
ing like work. Look at the bees.” 

“ I beg your pardon,” returned Eugene, with a reluctant 
smile, “ but will you excuse my mentioning that I always 
protest against being referred to the bees ? ” 

“ Do you! ” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ I object on principle,” said Eugene, “ as a biped ” 

“ As a what?” asked Mr. Boffin. 

“As a two-footed creature; — I object on principle, as 
a two-footed creature, to being constantly referred to insects 
and four-footed creatures. I object to being required to 
model my proceedings according to the proceedings of the 
bee, or the dog, or the spider, or the camel. I fully admit 
that the camel, for instance, is an excessively temperate 
person; but he has several stomachs to entertain himself 
with, and I have only one. Besides, I am not fitted up with 
a convenient cool cellar to keep my drink in.” 


MR. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 105 

“ But I said, you know,” urged Mr. Boffin, rather at a loss 
for an answer, “ the bee.” 

“ Exactly. And may I represent to you that it’s inju- 
dicious to say the bee? For the whole case is assumed. 
Conceding for a moment that there is any analogy between 
a bee and a man in a shirt and pantaloons (which I deny), 
and that it is settled that the man is to learn from the bee 
(which I also deny), the question still remains. What is he 
to learn? To imitate? ,Or to avoid? When your friends 
the bees worry themselves to that highly fluttered extent 
about their sovereign, and become perfectly distracted touch- 
ing the slightest monarchical movement, are we men to learn 
the greatness of Tuft-hunting, or the littleness of the Court 
Circular ? I am not clear, Mr. Boffin, but that the hive may 
be satirical.” 

“At all events, they work,” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ Ye-es,” returned Eugene, disparagingly, “ they work; 
but don’t you think they overdo it ? They work so much more 
than they need — they make so much more than they can eat 
— they are so incessantly boring and buzzing at their one 
idea till Death comes upon them — that don’t you think they 
overdo it ? And are human labourers to have no holidays, 
because of the bees ? And am I never to have change of air, 
because the bees don’t ? Mr. Boffin, I think honey excellent 
at breakfast; but regarded in the light of my conventional 
schoolmaster and moralist, I protest against the tyrannical 
humbug of your friend the bee. With the highest respect 
for you.” 

“Thankee,” said Mr. Boffin. “Morning, morning!” 

But, the worthy Mr. Boffin jogged away with a comfortless 
impression he could have dispensed with, that there was a 
deal of unsatisfactoriness in the world, besides what he had 
recalled as appertaining to the Harmon property. And he 
was still jogging along Fleet Street in this condition of mind, 
when he became aware that he was closely tracked and 
observed by a man of genteel appearance. 

“ Now, then ? ” said Mr. Boffin, stopping short, with his 
meditations brought to an abrupt check, “ what’s the next 
article ? ” 

“ I beg your pardon, Mr. Boffin.” 


106 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ My name too, eh ? How did you come by it ? I don’t 
know you.” 

■“ No, sir, you don’t know me.” 

Mr. Boffin looked full at the man, and the man looked full 
at him. 

“No,” said Mr. Boffin, after a glance at the pavement, as 
if it were made of faces and he were trying to match the 
man’s, “ I dorCt know you.” 

“ I am nobody,” said the stranger, “ and not likely to be 
known; but Mr. Boffin’s wealth ” 

“ OhI that’s got about already, has it?” muttered Mr. 
Boffin. 

“ — And his romantic manner of acquiring it, make him 
conspicuous. You were pointed out to me the other day.” 

“ Well,” said Mr. Boffin, “ I should say I was a disappoint- 
ment to you when I was pinted out, if your politeness would 
allow you to confess it, for I am well aware I am not much 
to look at. What might you want with me ? Not in the law, 
are you ? ” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ No information to give, for a reward ? ” 

“ No, sir.” 

There may have been a momentary mantling in the face 
of the man as he made the last answer, but it passed di- 
rectly. 

“ If I don’t mistake, you have followed me from my 
lawyer’s and tried to fix my attention. Say out! Have 
you ? Or haven’t you ? ” demanded Mr. Boffin, rather angry. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Why have you ? ” 

“ If you will allow me to walk beside you, Mr. Boffin, 
I will tell you. Would you object to turn aside into this 
place — I think it is called Clifford’s Inn — where we can 
hear one another better than in the roaring street ? ” 

(“ Now,” thought Mr. Boffin, “ if he proposes a game at 
skittles, or meets a country gentleman just come into prop- 
erty, or produces any article of jewellery hie has found. 
I’ll knock him down!” With this discreet reflection, and 
carrying his stick in his arms much as Punch carries his, 
Mr. Boffin turned into Clifford’s Inn aforesaid.) 


MR. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 


107 


Mr. Boffin, I happened to be in Chancery Lane this 
morning, when I saw you going along before me. I took 
the liberty of following you, trying to make up my mind to 
speak to you, till you went into your lawyer's. Then I 
waited outside till you came out." 

(“ Don’t quite sound like skittles, nor yet country gentle- 
man, nor yet jewellery," thought Mr. Boffin, “ but there’s 
no knowing.") 

“ I am afraid my object is a bold one, I am afraid it has 
little of the usual practical world about it, but I venture it. 
If you ask me, or if you ask yourself — which is more likely — 
what emboldens me, I answer, I have been strongly assured 
that you are a man of rectitude and plain dealing, with the 
soundest of sound hearts, and that you are blessed in a wife 
distinguished by the same qualities.” 

“ Your information is true of Mrs. Boffin, anyhow," was 
Mr. Boffin’s answer, as he surveyed his new friend again. 
There was something repressed in the strange man’s manner, 
and he walked with his eyes on the ground — though con- 
scious, for all that, of Mr. Boffin’s observation — and he 
spoke in a subdued voice. But his words came easily, and 
his voice was agreeable in tone, albeit constrained. 

When I add, I can discern for myself what the general 
tongue says of you — that you are quite unspoiled by Fortune, 
and not uplifted — I trust you will not, as a man of an open 
nature, suspect that I mean to flatter you, but will believe 
that all I mean is to excuse myself, these being my only 
excuses for my present intrusion." 

(“ How much ? ’’ thought Mr. Boffin. “ It must be coming 
to money. How much ? ’’) 

'‘You will probably change your manner of living, Mr. 
Boffin, in your changed circumstances. You will probably 
keep a larger house, have many matters to arrange, and be 
beset by numbers of correspondents. If you would try me 
as your Secretary ’’ 

“As what? ’’ cried Mr. Boffin, with his eyes wide open. 

“ Your Secretary." 

“ Well," said Mr. Boffin, under his breath, “ that’s a queer 
thing! ’’ 

“ Or," pursued the stranger, wondering at Mr. Boffin’s 


108 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


wonder, '' if you would try me as your man of business 
under any name, I know you would find me faithful and 
grateful, and I hope you would find me useful. You may 
naturally think that my immediate object is money. Not 
so, for I would willingly serve you a year — two years — any 
term you might appoint — before that should begin to be 
a consideration between us.'^ 

Where do you come from ? ” asked Mr. Boffin. 

“ I come,” returned the other, meeting his eye, ‘‘ from 
many countries.” 

Mr. Boffin’s acquaintance with the names and situations 
of foreign lands being limited in extent and somewhat con- 
fused in quality, he shaped his next question on an elastic 
model. 

“ From — any particular place ? ” 

I have been in many places.” 

“ What have you been ? ” asked Mr. Boffin. 

Here again he made no great advance, for the reply was, 

I have been a student and a traveller.” 

“ But if it ain’t a liberty to plump it out,” said Mr. Boffin, 
“ what do you do for your living? ” 

“ I have m’entioned,” returned the other, with another 
look at him, and a smile, “ what I aspire to do. I have been 
superseded as to some slight intentions I had, and I may 
say that I have now to begin life.” 

Not very well knowing how to get rid of this applicant, 
and feeling the more embarrassed because his manner and 
appearance claimed a delicacy in which the worthy Mr. 
Boffin feared he himself might be deficient, that gentleman 
glanced into the mouldy little plantation, or cat-preserve, 
of Clifford’s Inn, as it was that day, in search of a sug- 
gestion, Sparrows were there, cats were there, dry-rot and 
wet-rot were there, but it was not otherwise a suggestive 
spot. 

“ All this time,” said the stranger, producing a little 
pocket-book and taking out a card, “ I have not mentioned 
my name. My name is Rokesmith. I lodge at one Mr. 
Wilfer’s, at Holloway.” 

Mr. Boffin stared again. 

“ Father of Miss Bella Wilfer? ” said he. 


MR. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 


109 


My landlord has a daughter named Bella. Yes: no 
doubt/’ 

Now, this name had been more or less in Mr. Boffin’s 
thoughts all the morning, and for days before, therefore he 
said : 

“ That’s singular, too!” unconsciously staring again, past 
all bounds of good manners, with the card in his hand 
“ Though, by-the-bye, I suppose it was one of that family 
that pinted me out ? ” 

“ No. I have never been in the streets with one of them/' 

“ Heard me talked of among ’em, though?” 

“No. I occupy my own rooms, and have held scarcely 
any communication with them.” 

“ Odder and odder! ” said Mr. Boffin. “ Well, sir, to tell 
you the truth, I don’t know what to say to you.” 

“ Say nothing,” returned Mr. Rokesmith, “ allow me to 
call on you in a few days. I am not so unconscionable as to 
think it likely that you would accept me on trust at first 
sight, and take me out of the very street. Let me come to 
you for your further opinion, at your leisure.” 

“ That’s fair, and I don’t object,” said Mr. Boffin; “but 
it must be on condition that it’s fully understood that I no 
more know that I shall ever be in want of any gentleman as 
Secretary — it was Secretary you said ; wasn’t it ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

Again Mr. Boffin’s eyes opened wide, and he stared at the 
applicant from head to foot, repeating, “Queer! — You’re 
sure it was Secretary ? Are you ? ” 

“ I am sure I said so.” 

“ — As Secretary,” repeated Mr. Boffin, meditating upon 
the word ; “ I no more know that I may ever want a Secretary, 
or what not, than I do that I shall ever be in want of the man 
in the moon. Me and Mrs. Boffin have not even settled 
that we shall make any change in our way of life. Mrs 
Boffin’s inclinations certainly do tend towards Fashion; 
but, being already set up in a fashionable way at the Bower, 
she may not make further alterations. However, sir, as 
you don’t press yourself, I wish to meet you so far as saying, 
by all means call at the Bower if you like. Call in the course 
of a week or two. At the same time, I consider that I ought 


no 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


to name, in addition to what I have already named, that 
I have in my employment a literary man — with a wooden 
leg — as I have no thoughts of parting from/’ 

“ I regret to hear I am in some sort anticipated,” Mr. 
Rokesmith answered, evidently having heard it with sur- 
prise; but perhaps other duties might arise ? ” 

“You see,” returned Mr. Boffin, with a confidential sense 
of dignity, “as to my literary man’s duties, they’re clear. 
Professionally he declines and he falls, and as a friend he 
drops into poetry.” 

Without observing that these duties seemed by no means 
clear to Mr. Rokesmith’ s astonished comprehension, Mr. 
Boffin went on: 

“ And now, sir. I’ll wish you good day. You can call at 
the Bower any time in a week or two. It’s not above a mile 
or so from you, and your landlord can direct you to it. But 
as he may not know it by its new name of Boffin’s Bower, 
say, when you inquire of him, it’s Harmon’s; will you?” 

“ Harmoon’s,” repeated Mr. Rokesmith, seeming to have 
caught the sound imperfectly, “ Harmam’s. How do you 
spell it?” 

“ Why, as to the spelling of it,” returned Mr. Boffin, with 
great presence of mind, “ that’s your look-out. Harmon’s 
is all you’ve got to say to him. Morning, morning, morning! ” 
And so departed, without looking back. 


CHAPTER IX 


MR. AND MRS. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 

Betaking himself straight homeward, Mr. Boffin, without 
further let or hindrance, arrived at the Bower, and gave 
Mrs. Boffin (in a walking dress of black velvet and feathers, 
like a mourning-coach horse) an account of all he had said 
and done since breakfast. 

‘‘ This brings us round, my dear,” he then pursued, “ to 
the question we left unfinished: namely, whether there’s to 
be any new go-in for Fashion.” 

Now, I’ll tell you what I want. Noddy,” said Mrs. BoflSn, 
smoothing her dress with an air of immense enjoyment, 

I want Society.” 

^^Fashionable Society, my dear?” 

“Yes!” cried Mrs. Boffin, laughing with the glee of a 
child. “ Yes! It’s no good my being kept here like Wax- 
Work; is it now?” 

“ People have to pay to see Wax-Work, my dear,” re- 
turned her husband, “ whereas (though you’d be cheap at 
the same money) the neighbours is welcome to see you for 
nothing.” 

“ But it don’t answer,” said the cheerful Mrs. Boffin. 
“ When we worked like the neighbours, we suited one 
another. Now we have left work off, we have left off suiting 
one another.” 

“ What, do you think of beginning work again ? ” Mr. 
Boffin hinted. 

“ Out of the question ! We have come into a great fortune, 
and we must do what’s right by our fortune; we must act 
up to it.” 

Mr. Boffin, who had a deep respect for his wife’s intuitive 


112 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


wisdom, replied, though rather pensively: I suppose we 
must.” 

“ It’s never been acted up to yet, and, consequently, no 
good has come of it,” said Mrs. Boffin. 

“ True, to the present time,” Mr. Boffin assented, with his 
former pensiveness, as he took his seat upon his settle. “ I 
hope good may be coming of it in the future time. Towards 
which, what’s your views, old lady ? ” 

Mrs. Boffin, a smiling creature, broad of figure and simple 
of nature, with her hands folded in her lap, and with buxom 
creases in her throat, proceeded to expound her views 

I say a good house in a good neighbourhood, good things 
about us, good living, and good society. I say, live like our 
means, without extravagance, and be happy.” 

“ Yes. I say be happy, too,” assented the still pensive 
Mr. Boffin. 

“ Lor-a-mussy! ” exclaimed Mrs. Boffin, laughing and 
clapping her hands, and gaily rocking herself to and fro, 
“ when I think of me in a light yellow chariot and pair, 

with silver boxes to the wheels ” 

Oh! you was thinking of that, was you, my dear? ” 

“ Yes! ” cried the delighted creature. “ And with a foot- 
man up behind, with a bar across, to keep his legs from 
being poled! And with a coachman up in front, sinking 
down into a seat big enough for three of him, all covered 
with upholstery in green and white! And with two bay 
horses tossing their heads and stepping higher than they 
trot long- ways! And with you and me leaning back inside, 
as grand as ninepence! Oh-h-h-h My! Ha ha ha ha 
ha!” 

Mrs. Boffin clapped her hands again, rocked herself again, 
beat her feet upon the floor, and wiped the tears of laughter 
from her eyes. 

“ And what, my old lady,” inquired IMr. Boffin, when he 
also had sympathetically laughed: “what’s your views on 
the subject of the Bower? ” 

“ Shut it up. Don’t part with it, but put somebody in it, 
to keep it.” 

“ Any other views ? ” 

“ Noddy,” said Mrs. Boffin, coming from her fashionable 


MR. AND MRS. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 113 

sofa to his side on the plain settle, and hooking her com- 
fortable arm through his, Next I think — and I really have 
been thinking early and late — of the disappointed girl; her 
that was so cruelly • disapppinted, you know, both of her 
husband and his riches. Don’t you think we might do 
something for her? Have her to live with us? Or some- 
thing of that sort? ” 

“ Ne-ver once thought of the way of doing it! ” cried Mr. 
Boffin, smiting the table in his admiration. What a think- 
ing steam-ingein this old lady is! And she don’t know how 
she does it. Neither does the ingein!” 

Mrs. Boffin pulled his nearest ear, in acknowledgment of 
this piece of philosophy, and then said, gradually toning 
down to a motherly strain : “ Last, and not least, I have 
taken a fancy. You remember dear little John Harmon, 
before he went to school? Over yonder across the yard, 
at our fire? Now that he is past all benefit of the money, 
and it’s come to us, I should like to find some orphan child, 
and take the boy and adopt him and give him John’s name, 
and provide for him. Somehow, it would make me easier, 

I fancy. Say it’s only a whim ” 

But I don’t say so,” interposed her husband. 

No, but deary, if you did ” 

“ I should be a Beast if I did,” her husband interposed 
again. 

“ That’s as much as to say you agree ? Good and kind of 
you, and like you, deary! And don’t you begin to find it 
})leasant now,” said Mrs. Boffin, once more radiant in her 
comely way from head to foot, and once more smoothing her 
dress with immense enjoyment, don’t you begin to find it 
pleasant already, to think that a child will be made brighter, 
and better, and happier, because of that poor sad child that 
day? And isn’t it pleasant to know that the good will be 
done with the poor sad child’s own money ? ” 

“ Yes; and it’s pleasant to know that you are Mrs. Boffin,” 
said her husband, “ and it’s been a pleasant thing to know 
this many and many a year! ” It was ruin to Mrs. Boffin’s 
aspirations, but, having so spoken, they sat side by side, 
a hopelessly Unfashionable pair. 

These two ignorant and. unpolished people had guided 


114 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


themselves so far on in their journey of life, by a religious 
sense of duty and desire to do right. Ten thousand weak- 
nesses and absurdities might have been detected in the 
breasts of both; ten thousand vanities additional, possibly, 
in the breast of the woman. But the hard wrathful and 
sordid nature that had wrung as much work out of them as 
could be got in their best days, for as little money as could 
be paid to hurry on their worst, had never been so warped 
but that it knew their moral straightness and respected it. 
In its own despite, in a constant conflict with itself and 
them, it had done so. And this is the eternal law. For, 
Evil often stops short at itself and dies with the doer of it! 
but Good, never. 

Through his most inveterate purposes, the dead Jailer of 
Harmony Jail had known these two faithful servants to be 
honest and true. While he raged at them and reviled them 
for opposing him with the speech of the honest and true, it 
had scratched his stony heart, and he had perceived the 
powerlessness of all his wealth to buy them if he had ad- 
dressed himself to the attempt. So, even while he was 
their griping taskmaster and never gave them a good word, 
he had written their names down in his will. So, even 
while it was his daily declaration that he mistrusted all 
mankind — and sorely indeed he did mistrust all who bore 
any resemblance to himself — he was as certain that these 
two people, surviving him, would be trustworthy in all 
things from the greatest to the least, as he was that he must 
surely die. 

Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, sitting side by side, with Fashion 
withdrawn to an immeasurable distance, fell to discussing 
how they could best find their orphan. Mrs. Boffin suggested 
advertisement in the newspapers, requesting orphans answer- 
ing annexed description to apply at the Bower on a certain 
day; but Mr. Boffin wisely apprehending obstruction of the 
neighbouring thoroughfares by orphan swarms, this course 
was negatived. Mrs. Boffin next suggested application to 
their clergyman for a likely orphan. Mr. Boffin thinking 
better of this scheme, they resolved to call upon the reverend 
gentleman at once, and to take the same opportunity of mak- 
ing acquaintance with Miss Bella Wilfer. In order that these 


MR. AND MRS. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 115 


visits might be visits of state, Mrs. Boffin’s equipage was 
ordered out. 

This consisted of a long hammer-headed old horse, formerly 
used in the business, attached to a four-wheeled chaise of the 
same period, which had long been exclusively used by the 
Harmony Jail poultry as the favourite laying-place of several 
discreet hens. An unwonted application of corn to the horse, 
and of paint and varnish to the carriage, when both fell in as 
a part of the Boffin legacy, had made what Mr. Boffin con- 
sidered a neat turn-out of the whole ; and a driver being added, 
in the person of a long hammer-headed young man who was 
a very good match for the horse, left nothing to be desired. 
He, too, had been formerly used in the business, but was now 
entombed by an honest jobbing tailor of the district in a 
perfect Sepulchre of coat and gaiters, sealed with ponderous 
buttons. 

Behind this domestic, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin took their seats 
in the back compartment of the vehicle: which was suffi- 
ciently commodious, but had an undignified and alarming 
tendency, in getting over a rough crossing, to hiccup itself 
away from the front compartment. On their being descried 
emerging from the gates of the Bower, the neighbourhood 
turned out at door and window to salute the Boffins. Among 
those who were ever and again left behind, staring after the 
equipage, were many youthful spirits, who hailed it in 
stentorian tones with such congratulations as Nod-dy Bof- 
fin ! ” “ Bof-fin’s mon-ey ! ” “ Down with the dust, Bof-fin ! ” 
and other similar compliments. These, the hammer-headed 
young man took in such ill part that he often impaired the 
majesty of the progress by pulling up short, and making as 
though he would alight to exterminate the offenders; a pur- 
pose from which he only allowed himself to be dissuaded after 
long and lively arguments with his employers. 

At length the Bower district was left behind, and the peace- 
ful dwelling of the Reverend Frank Milvey was gained. The 
Reverend Frank Milvey’s abode was a very modest abode, 
because his income was a very modest income. He was 
officially accessible to every blundering old woman who had 
incoherence to bestow upon him, and readily received the 
Boffins. He was quite a young man, expensively educated 


116 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


and wretchedly paid, with quite a young wife and half-a-dozen 
quite young children. He was under the necessity of teaching 
and translating from the classics, to eke out his scanty means, 
yet was generally expected to have more time to spare than 
the idlest person in the parish, and more money than the 
richest. He accepted the needless inequalities and incon- 
sistencies of his life, with a kind of conventional submission 
that was almost slavish; and any daring layman who would 
have adjusted such burdens as his, more decently and 
graciously, would have had small help from him. 

With a ready patient face and manner, and yet with a latent 
smile that showed a quick enough observation of Mrs. Boffin’s 
dress, Mr. Milvey, in his little back-room — charged with 
sounds and cries as though the six children above were coming 
down through the ceiling, and the roasting leg of mutton 
below were coming up through the floor — listened to Mrs. 
Boffin’s statement of her want of an orphan. 

“ I think,” said Mr. Milvey, “ that you have never had a 
child of your own, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin ? ” 

“ Never.” 

But, like the Kings and Queens in the Fairy Tales, I sup- 
pose you have wished for one ? ” 

“ In a general way, yes.” 

Mr. Milvey smiled again, as he remarked to himself, 
“ Those kings and queens were always wishing for chil- 
dren.” It occurred to him, perhaps, that if they had been 
Curates, their wishes might have tended in the opposite direc- 
tion. 

“ I think,” he pursued, “ we had better take Mrs. Milvey 
into our Council. She is indispensable to me. If you please. 
I’ll call her.” 

So, Mr. Milvey called, “Margaretta, my dear! ” and Mrs. 
Milvey came down. A pretty, bright little woman, something 
worn by anxiety, who had repressed many pretty tastes and 
bright fancies, and substituted in their stead, schools, soup, 
flannel, coals, and all the week-day cares and Sunday coughs 
of a large population, young and old. As gallantly had Mr. 
Milvey repressed much in himself that naturally belonged to 
his old studies and old fellow-students, and taken up among 
the poor and their children with the hard crumbs of life. 


MR. AND MRS. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 117 

“ Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, my dear, whose good fortune you 
have heard of.” 

Mrs. Milvey, with the most unaffected grace in the world, 
congratulated them, and was glad to see them. Yet her 
engaging face, being an open as well as a perceptive one, was 
not without her husband’s latent smile. 

“ Mrs. Boffin wishes to adopt a little boy, my dear.” 

Mrs. Milvey looking rather alarmed, her husband added: 

“ An orphan, my dear.” 

“ Oh! ” said Mrs. Milvey, reassured for her own little boys. 

“ And I was thinking, Margaretta, that perhaps old Mrs. 
Goody’s grandchild might answer the purpose.” 

Oh, my dear Frank! I don't think that would do! ” 

“ No?” 

“ Oh no!” 

The smiling Mrs. Boffin, feeling it incumbent on her to 
take part in the conversation, and being charmed with the 
emphatic little wife and her ready interest, here offered her 
acknowledgments and inquired what there was against him ? 

“ I don’t think,” said Mrs. Milvey, glancing at the Reverend 
Frank — and I believe my husband will agree with me 
when he considers it again — that you could possibly keep 
that orphan clean from snuff. Because his grandmother 
takes so many ounces, and drops it over him.” 

“ But he would not be living with his grandmother then, 
Margaretta,” said Mr. Milvey. 

“ No, Frank, but it would be impossible to keep her from 
Mrs. Boffin’s house; and the more there was to eat and drink 
there, the oftener she would go. And she is an inconvenient 
woman. I hope it’s not uncharitable to remember that last 
Christmas Eve she drank eleven cups of tea, and grumbled all 
the time. And she is not a grateful woman, Frank. You 
recollect her addressing a crowd outside this house, about her 
wrongs, when, one night after we had gone to bed, she brought 
back the petticoat of new flannel that had been given her, 
because it was too short.” 

“ That’s true,” said Mr. Milvey. “ I don’t think that 

would do. Would little Harrison ” 

Oh, Frank ! ” remonstrated his emphatic wife. 

“ He has no grandmother, my dear.” 


118 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ No, but I don't think Mrs. Boffin would like an orphan 
who squints so much” 

“ That’s true again,” said Mr. Milvey, becoming haggard 
with perplexity. ‘‘ If a little girl would do ” 

“ But, my dear Frank, Mr. Boffin wants a boy.” 

“ That’s true again,” said Mr. Milvey. Tom Bocker is a 
nice boy ” (thoughtfully). 

But I douht, Frank,” Mrs. Milvey hinted, after a little 
hesitation, if Mrs. Boffin wants an orphan quite nineteen, 
who drives a cart and waters the roads.” 

Mr. Milvey referred the point to Mrs. Boffin in a look; on 
that smiling lady’s shaking her black velvet bonnet and bows, 
he remarked, in lower spirits, That’s true again.” 

“ I am sure,” said Mrs. Boffin, concerned at giving so much 
trouble, “ that if I had known you would have taken so 
much pains, sir — and you too, ma’am — I don’t think I 
would have come.” 

Pray don’t say that!” urged Mrs. Milvey. 

“ No, don’t say that,” assented Mr. Milvey, “ because we 
are so much obliged to you for giving us the preference.” 
Which Mrs. Milvey confirmed; and really the kind, conscien- 
tious couple spoke as if they kept some profitable orphan 
warehouse and were personally patronised. ‘‘ But it is a re- 
sponsible trust,” added Mr. Milvey, “ and difficult to dis- 
charge. At the same time, we are naturally very unwilling 
to lose the chance you so kindly give us, and if you could 
afford us a day or two to look about us, — you know, Mar- 
garetta, we might carefully examine the workhouse, and the 
Infant School, and your District.” 

P To be sure ! ” said the emphatic little wife. 

We have orphans, I know,” pursued Mr. Milvey, quite 
with the air as if he might have added, “ in stock,” and 
quite as anxiously as if there were great competition in the 
business and he were afraid of losing an order, “ over at the 
clay-pits; but they are employed by relations or friends, and 
I am afraid it would come at last to a transaction in the 
way of barter. And even if you exchanged blankets for the 
child — or books and firing — it would be impossible to pre- 
vent their being turned into liquor.” 

Accordingly, it was resolved that Mr. and Mrs. Milvey 


MR. AND MRS. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 119 

should search for an orphan likely to suit, and as free as 
possible from the foregoing objections, and should commu- 
nicate again with Mrs. Boffin. Then, hlr. Boffin took the 
liberty of mentioning to Mr. Milvey that if Mr. Milvey 
would do him the kindness to be perpetually his banker to 
the extent of “ a twenty-pound note or so,’’ to be expended 
without any reference to him, he would be heartily obliged. 
At this, both Mr. Milvey and Mrs. Milvey were quite as 
much pleased as if they had no wants of their own, but only 
knew what poverty was, in the persons of other people; and 
so the interview terminated with satisfaction and good opinion 
on all sides. 

“ Now, old lady,” said Mr. Boffin, as they resumed their 
seats behind the hammer-headed horse and man: “ having 
made a very agreeable visit there, we’ll try Wilfer’s.” 

It appeared, on their drawing up at the family gate, that 
to try Wilfer’s was a thing more easily projected than done, 
on account of the extreme difficulty of getting into that 
establishment; three pulls at the bell producing no external 
result, though each was attended by audible sounds of scam- 
pering and rushing within. At the fourth tug — vindictively 
administered by the hammer-headed young man — Miss 
Lavinia appeared, emerging from the house in an accidental, 
manner, with a bonnet and parasol, as designing to take a 
contemplative walk. The young lady was astonished to find 
visitors at the gate, and expressed her feelings in appropriate 
action. 

“Here’s Mr. and Mrs. Boffin!” growled the hammer- 
headed young man through the bars of the gate, and at the 
same time shaking it, as if he were on view in a Menagerie; 
“ they’ve been here half-an-hour.” 

“ Who did you say? ” asked Miss Lavinia. 

“ Mr. and Mrs. Boffin! ” returned the young man, rising 
into a roar. 

Miss Lavinia tripped up the steps to the house-door, 
tripped down the steps with the key, tripped across the little 
, garden, and opened the gate. “ Please to walk in,” said 
Miss Lavinia, haughtily. “ Our servant is out.” 

Mr. and Mrs. Boffin complying, and pausing in the little 
hall until Miss Lavinia came up to show them where to go 


120 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


next, perceived three pairs of listening legs upon the stairs 
above. Mrs. Wilfer’s legs, Miss Bella’s legs, Mr. George 
Sampson’s legs. 

“ Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, I think? ” said Lavinia, in a warn- 
ing voice. 

Strained attention on the part of Mrs. Wilfer’s legs, of 
Miss Bella’s legs, of Mr. George Sampson’s legs. 

“ Yes, miss.” 

“ If you’ll step this way — down these stairs — I’ll let Ma 
know.” 

Excited flight of Mrs. Wilfer’s legs, of Miss Bella’s legs, 
of Mr. George Sampson’s legs. 

After waiting some quarter of an hour alone in the family 
sitting-room, which presented traces of having been so hastily 
arranged after a meal, that one might have doubted whether 
it was made tidy for visitors, or cleared for blindman’s buff, 
Mr. and Mrs. Boffin became aware of the entrance of Mrs. 
Wilfer, majestically faint, and with a condescending stitch in 
her side: which was her company manner. 

“ Pardon me,” said Mrs. Wilfer, after the first salutations, 
and as soon as she had adjusted the handkerchief under her 
chin, and waved her gloved hands, “ to what am I indebted 
,for this honour ? ” 

“ To make short of it, ma’am,” returned Mr. Boffin, “ per- 
haps you may be acquainted with the names of me and Mrs. 
Boffin, as having come into a certain property.” 

“ I have heard, sir,” returned Mrs. Wilfer, with a dignified 
bend of her head, “ of such being the case.” 

“ And I dare say, ma’am,” pursued Mr. Boffin, while Mrs. 
Boffin added confirmatory nods and smiles, “you are not very 
much inclined to take kindly to us ? ” 

“ Pardon me,” said Mrs. Wilfer. “ ’Twere unjust to visit 
upon Mr. and Mrs. Boffin a calamity which was doubtless a 
dispensation.” These words were rendered the more effective 
by a serenely heroic expression of suffering. 

“ That’s fairly meant, I am sure,” remarked the honest Mr. 
Boffin; “ Mrs. Boffin and me, ma’am, are plain people, and 
we don’t want to pretend to anything, nor yet to go roiind 
and round at anything: because there’s always a straight way 
to everything. Consequently, we make this call to say, that 


MR. AND MRS. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 121 

we shall be glad to have the honour and pleasure of your 
daughter’s acquaintance, and that we shall be rejiced if your 
daughter will come to consider our house in the light of her 
home equally with this. In short, we want to cheer your 
daughter, and to give her the opportunity of sharing such 
pleasures as we are a-going to take ourselves. We want to 
brisk her up, and brisk her about, and give her a change.” 

“ That’s it! ” said the open-hearted Mrs. Boffin. “ Lor! 
Let’s be comfortable.” 

Mrs. Wilfer bent her head in a distant manner to her lady 
visitor, and with majestic monotony replied to the gentle- 
man: 

“ Pardon me. I have several daughters. Which of my 
daughters am I to understand is thus favoured by the kind 
intentions of Mr. Boffin and his lady ? ” 

“ Don’t you see ? ” the ever-smiling Mrs. Boffin put in. 
‘‘ Naturally, Miss Bella, you know.” 

“Oh-h!” said Mrs. Wilfer, with a severely unconvinced 
look. My daughter Bella is accessible and shall speak for 
herself.” Then opening the door a little way, simultaneously 
with a sound of scuttling outside it, the good lady made the 
proclamation, “ Send Miss Bella to me! ” Which proclama- 
tion, though grandly formal, and one might almost say 
heraldic, to hear, was in fact enunciated with her maternal 
eyes reproachfully glaring on that young lady in the flesh — 
and in so much of it that she was retiring with difficulty 
into the small closet under the stairs, apprehensive of the 
emergence of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin. 

The avocations of R. W., my husband,” Mrs. Wilfer ex- 
pired, on resuming her seat, “ keep him fully engaged in the 
Ciw at this time of the day, or he would have had the honour 
of participating in your reception beneath our humble roof.” 

“ Very pleasant premises! ” said Mr. Boffin, cheerfully. 

“ Pardon me, sir,” returned Mrs. Wilfer, correcting him, 
“it is the abode of conscious though independent Pov- 
erty.” 

Finding it rather difficult to pursue the conversation 
down this road, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin sat staring at mid-air, 
and Mrs. Wilfer sat silently giving them to understand that 
every breath she drew required to be drawn with a self-denial 


122 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


rarely paralleled in history, until Miss Bella appeared: whom 
Mrs. Wilfer presented, and to whom she explained the 
purpose of the visitors. 

“ I am much obliged to you, I am sure,” said Miss Bella, 
coldly shaking her curls, “ but I doubt if I have the inclina- 
tion to go out at all.” 

“ Bella! ” Mrs. Wilfer admonished her; “ Bella, you must 
conquer this.” 

“ Yes, do what your Ma says, and conquer it, my dear,” 
urged Mrs. Boffin, “ because we shall be so glad to have you, 
and because you are much too pretty to keep yourself shut 
up.” With that, the pleasant creature gave her a kiss, and 
patted her on her dimpled shoulders; Mrs. Wilfer sitting 
stiffly by, like a functionary presiding over an interview, 
previous to an execution. 

“ We are going to move into a nice house,” said Mrs. 
Boffin, who was woman enough to compromise Mr. Boffin on 
that point, when he couldn’t very well contest it; “ and we 
are going to set up a nice carriage, and we’ll go everywhere 
and see everything. And you mustn’t,” seating Bella beside 
her, and patting her hand, “ you mustn’t feel a dislike to us 
to begin with, because we couldn’t help it, vou know, mv 
dear.” 

With the natural tendency of youth to yield to candour 
and sweet temper. Miss Bella was so touched by the simplicity 
of this address that she frankly returned Mrs. Boffin’s kiss. 
Not at all to the satisfaction of that good woman of the 
world, her mother, who sought to hold the advantageous 
ground of obliging the Boffins instead of being obliged. 

“ My youngest daughter, Lavinia,” said Mrs. Wilfer, ^ad 
to make a diversion, as that young lady reappeared. ‘*Ir. 
George Sampson, a friend of the family.” 

The friend of the family was in that stage of the tender 
passion which bound him to regard everybody else as the foe 
of the family. He put the round head of his cane in his 
mouth, like a stopper, when he sat down. As if he felt 
himself full to the throat with affronting sentiments. And 
he eyed the Boffins with implacable eyes. 

“ If you like to bring your sister with you when you come 
to stay with us,” said Mrs. Boffin, “ of course we shall be 


MR. AND MRS. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 123 


glad. The better you please yourself, Miss Bella, the better 
you’ll please us.” 

“ Oh, my consent is of no consequence at all, I suppose? ” 
cried Miss Lavinia. 

“ Lavvy,” said her sister, in a low voice, ” have the goodness 
to be seen and not heard.” 

“ No, I won’t,” replied the sharp Lavinia. “ I’m not a 
child, to be taken notice of by strangers.” 

“ You are a child.” 

“ I’m not a child, and I won’t be taken notice of. ‘ Bring 
your sister,’ indeed!” 

“Lavinia!” said Mrs. Wilfer. “Hold, I will not allow 
you to utter in my presence the absurd suspicion that any 
strangers — I care not what their names — can patronise my 
child. Do you dare to suppose, you ridiculous girl, that Mr. 
and Mrs. Boffin would enter these doors upon a patronising 
errand; or, if they did, would remain within them, only for 
one single instant, while your mother had the strength yet 
remaining in her vital frame to request them to depart? 
You little know your mother, if you presume to think 
so.” 

“ It’s all very fine,” Lavinia began to grumble, when Mrs. 
Wilfer repeated: 

“ Hold! I will not allow this. Do you not know what is 
due to guests? Do you not comprehend that in presuming 
to hint that this lady and gentleman could have any idea of 
patronising any member of your family — I care not which — 
you accuse them of an impertinence little less than insane? ” 

“ Nevermind me and Mrs. Boffin, ma’am,” said Mr, Boffin, 
smilingly; “ we don’t care.” 

“ Pardon me, but I do,” returned Mrs. Wilfer. 

Miss Lavinia laughed a short laugh as she muttered, 
“ Yes, to be sure*” 

“ And I require my audacious child,” proceeded Mrs. 
Wilfer, with a withering look at her youngest, on whom it had 
not the slightest effect, “ to please to be just to her sister 
Bella; to remember that her sister Bella is much sought 
after; and that when her sister Bella accepts an attention, she 
considers herself to be conferring qui-i-ite as much honour,” 
— this with an indignant shiver, — “ as she receives.” 


124 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


But here Miss Bella repudiated, and said quietly, I can 
speak for myself, you know, Ma. You needn’t bring me in, 
please.” 

“And it’s all very well aiming at others through convenient 
me,” said the irrepressible Lavinia, spitefully; “ but I should 
like to ask George Sampson what he says to it.” 

“ Mr. Sampson,” proclaimed Mrs. Wilfer, seeing that young 
gentleman take his stopper out, and so darkly fixing him with 
her eyes as that he put it in again: “ Mr. Sampson, as 
a friend of this family, and a frequenter of this hou.se, is, 
I am persuaded, far too well-bred to interpose on such an 
invitation.” 

This exaltation of the young gentleman moved the con- 
scientious Mrs. Boffin to repentance for having done him an 
injustice in her mind, and consequently to saying that she 
and Mr. Boffin would at any time be glad to see him; an 
attention which he handsomely acknowledged by replying, 
with his stopper unremoved, “ Much obliged to you, but I’m 
always engaged, day and night.” 

However, Bella compensating for all drawbacks by respond- 
ing to the advances of the Boffins in an engaging way, that 
easy pair were on the whole well satisfied, and proposed to 
the said Bella that as soon as they should be in a condition 
to receive her in a manner suitable to their desires, Mrs. 
Boffin should return with notice of the fact. This arrange- 
ment Mrs. Wilfer sanctioned with a stately inclination of her 
head and wave of her gloves, as who would say, “ Your 
demerits shall be overlooked, and you shall be mercifully 
gratified, poor people.” 

- “ By-the-bye, ma’am,” said Mr. Boffin, turning back as 
he was going, “ you have a lodger? ” 

“A gentleman,” Mrs. Wilfer answered, qualifying the low 
expression, “ undoubtedly occupies our firgt floor.” 

“ I may call him Our Mutual Friend,” said Mr. Boffin. 
“ What sort of a fellow is Our Mutual Friend, now? Do 
you like him ? ” 

“ Mr. Rokesmith is very punctual, very quiet, a very 
eligible inmate.” 

“ Because,” Mr. Boffin explained, “ you must know that I 
am not particularly well acquainted with Our Mutual Friend, 


MR. AND MRS. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 125 

for I have only seen him once. You give a good account 
of him. Is he at home ? ” 

“ Mr. Rokesmith is at home,” said Mrs. Wilfer; “ indeed,” 
pointing through the window, “ there he stands at the garden 
gate. Waiting for you, perhaps? ” 

“ Perhaps so,” replied Mr. Boffin. “ Saw me come in, 
maybe.” 

Bella had closely attended to this short dialogue. Ac- 
companying Mrs. Boffin to the gate, she as closely watched 
what followed. 

How are you, sir, how are you ? ” said Mr. Boffin. “ This 
is Mrs. Boffin. Mr. Rokesmith, that I told you of, my dear.” 

She gave him good day, and he bestirred himself and 
helped her to her seat, and the like, with a ready hand. 

“ Good-bye for the present. Miss Bella,” said Mrs. Boffin, 
calling out a hearty parting. “ We shall meet again soon ! 
And then I hope I shall have my little John Harmon to 
show you.” 

Mr. Rokesmith, who was at the wheel adjusting the skirts 
of her dress, suddenly looked behind him, and around him, 
and then looked up at her, with a face so pale that Mrs. 
Boffin cried: 

“ Gracious! ” And after a moment, ‘‘ What’s the matter, 
sir?” 

“ How can you show her the Dead ? ” returned Mr. Roke- 
smith. 

“ It’s only an adopted child. One I have told her of 
One I’m going to give the name to! ” 

‘‘ You took me by surprise,” said Mr. Rokesmith, “ and it 
sounded like an omen, that you should speak of showing the 
Dead to one so young and blooming.” 

Now, Bella suspected by this time that Mr. Rokesmith 
admired her. Whether the knowledge (for it was rather that 
than suspicion) caused her to incline to him a little more, or 
a little less, than she had done at first; whether it rendered 
her eager to find out more about him, because she sought to 
establish reason for her distrust, or because she sought to 
free him from it, was as yet dark to her own heart. But at 
most times he occupied a great amount of her attention, and 
she had set her attention closely on this incident. 


126 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


That he knew it as well as she, she knew as well as he, 
when they were left together standing on the path by the 
garden gate. 

“ Those are worthy people, Miss Wilfer.” 

“ Do you know them well? ” asked Bella. 

He smiled, reproaching her, and she coloured, reproaching 
herself — both, with the knowledge that she had meant to 
entrap him into an answer not true — when he said “ I know 
oj them.” 

Truly, he told us he had seen you but once.” 

Truly, I supposed he did.” 

Bella was nervous now, and would have been glad to recall 
her question. 

“ You thought it strange that, feeling much interested in 
you, I should start at what sounded like a proposal to bring 
you into contact with the murdered man who lies in his 
grave. I might have known — of course in a moment should 
have known — that it could not have that meaning. But 
my interest remains.” 

Reentering the family room in a meditative state. Miss 
Bella was received by the irrepressible Lavinia with: 

There, Bella! At last I hope you have got your wishes 
realised — by your Boffins. You’ll be rich enough now — 
with your Boffins. You can have as much flirting as you like 
— at your Boffins’. But you won’t take me to your Boffins, 
I can tell you — you and your Boffins too! ” 

‘‘ If,” quoth Mr. George Sampson, moodily pulling his 
stopper out, Miss Bella’s Mr. Boffin comes any more of his 
nonsense to me, I only wish him to understand, as betwixt 

man and man, that he does it at his per ” and was going 

'to say peril; but Miss Lavinia having no confidence in his 
mental powers, and feeling his oration to have no definite 
application to any circumstances, jerked his stopper in again, 
with a sharpness that made his eyes water. 

And now the worthy Mrs. Wilfer, having used her youngest 
daughter as a lay figure for the edification of these Boffins, 
became bland to her, and proceeded to develop her last 
instance of force of character, which was still in reserve. 
This was to illuminate the family with her remarkable powers 
as a physiognomist; powers that terrified R. W. whenever let 


MR. AND MRS. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 127 


loose, as being always fraught with gloom and evil which no 
inferior prescience was aware of. And this Mrs. Wilfer now 
did, be it observed, in jealousy of these Boffins, in the very 
same moments when she was already reflecting how she would 
flourish these very same Boffins and the state they kept, over 
the heads of her Boffinless friends. 

Of their manners,” said Mrs. Wilfer, “ I say nothing. Of 
their appearance, I say nothing. Of the disinterestedness of 
their intentions towards Bella, I say nothing. But the craft, 
the secrecy, the dark deep underhanded plotting, written in 
Mrs. Boffin’s countenance, make me shudder.” 

As an incontrovertible proof that those baleful attributes 
were all there, Mrs. Wilfer shuddered on the spot. 


CHAPTER X 


A MARRIAGE CONTRACT 

There is excitement in the Veneering mansion. The 
mature young lady is going to be married (powder and all) to 
the mature young gentleman, and she is to be married from 
the Veneering house, and the Veneerings are to give the 
breakfast. The Analytical, who objects as a matter of prin- 
ciple to everything that occurs on the premises, necessarily 
objects to the match; but his consent has been dispensed with, 
and a spring van is delivering its load of greenhouse plants 
at the door, in order that to-morrow’s feast may be crowned 
with flowers. 

The mature young lady is a lady of property. The mature 
young gentleman is a gentleman of property. He invests his 
property. He goes, in a condescending amateurish way, into 
the City, attends meetings of Directors, and has to do with 
traffic in Shares. As is well known to the wise in their 
generation, traffic in Shares is the one thing to have to do 
with in this world. Have no antecedents, no established 
character, no cultivation, no ideas, no manners; have Shares. 
Have Shares enough to be on Boards of Direction^ in capital 
letters, oscillate on mysterious business between London and 
Paris, and be great. Where does he come from? Shares. 
Where is he going to ? Shares. What are his tastes ? Shares. 
Has he any principles? Shares. What squeezes him into 
Parliament ? Shares. Perhaps he never of himself achieved 
success in anything, never originated anything, never pro- 
duced anything! Sufficient answer to all; Shares. O 
mighty Shares! To set those blaring images so high, and to 
cause us smaller vermin, as under the influence of henbane or 
opium, to cry out night and day, “ Relieve us of our money, 
scatter it for us, buy us and sell us, ruin us, only we beseech 


A MARRIAGE CONTRACT 129 

ye take rank among the powers of the earth, and fatten on 
us! ” 

While the Loves and Graces have been preparing this 
torch for Hymen, which to be kindled to-morrow, Mr 
Twemlow has suffered much in his mind. It would seem 
that both the mature young lady and the mature young 
gentleman must indubitably be Veneering’s oldest friends. 
Wards of his, perhaps? Yet that can scarcely be, for they 
are older than himself. Veneering has been in their con- 
fidence throughout, and has done much to lure them to the 
Altar. He has mentioned to Twemlow how he said to Mrs 
Veneering, ‘‘ Anastatia, this must be a match.” He has 
mentioned to Twemlow how he regards Sophronia Akershem 
(the mature young lady) in the light of a sister, and Alfred 
Laimnle (the mature young gentleman) in the light of a 
brother. Twemlow has asked him whether he went to 
school as a junior with Alfred? He has answered, “ Not 
exactly.” Whether Sophronia was adopted by his mother? 
He has answered, ‘‘ Not precisely so.” Twemlow’s hand has 
gone to his forehead with a lost air. 

But, two or three weeks ago, Twemlow, sitting over his 
newspaper, and over his dry toast and weak tea, and over 
the stable-yard in Duke Street, St. James’s, received a 
highly-perfumed cocked-hat and monogram from Mrs. Ve- 
neering, entreating her dearest Mr. T., if not particularly 
engaged that day, to come like a charming soul and make a 
fourth at dinner with dear Mr. Podsnap, for the discussion 
of an interesting family topic; the last three words doubly 
underlined and pointed with a note of admiration. And 
Twemlow, replying, Not engaged, and more than de- 
lighted,” goes, and this takes place: 

‘‘ My dear Twemlow,” says Veneering, your ready re- 
sponse to Anastatia’s unceremonious invitation is truly kind, 
and like an old, old friend. You know our dear friend 
Podsnap ? ” 

Twemlow ought to know the dear friend Podsnap who 
covered him with so much confusion, and he says he does 
know him, and Podsnap reciprocates. Apparently, Podsnap 
has been so wrought upon in a short time, as to believe that 
he has been intimate in the house many, many, many years. 


130 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


In the friendliest manner he is making himself quite at home 
with his back to the fire, executing a statuette of the Colossus 
at Rhodes, Twemlow has before noticed in his feeble way 
how soon the Veneering guests become infected with the 
Veneering fiction. Not, however, that he has the least notion 
of its being his own case. 

“ Our friends, Alfred and Sophronia,” pursues Veneering 
the veiled prophet: “ our friends, Alfred and Sophronia, you 
will be glad to hear, my dear fellows, are going to be married. 
As my wife and I make it a family affair, the entire direction 
of which we take upon ourselves, of course our first step is to 
communicate the fact to our family friends.” 

(“ Oh!” thinks Twemlow, with his eyes on Podsnap, “ then 
there are only two of us, and he’s the other.”) 

I did hope,” Veneering goes on, “ to have had Lady 
Tippins to meet you; but she is always in request, and is 
unfortunately engaged.” 

(“ Oh! ” thinks Twemlow, with his eyes wandering, “ then 
there are three of us, and she s the other.”) 

“ Mortimer Lightwood,” resumes Veneering, “ whom you 
both know, is out of town; but he writes in his whimsical 
manner, that as we ask him to be bridegroom’s best man 
when the ceremony takes place, he will not refuse, though he 
doesn’t see what he has to do with it.” 

(“ Oh! ” thinks Twemlow, with his eyes rolling, “ then 
there are four of us, and he's the other.”) 

Boots and Brewer,” observes Veneering, “ whom you 
also know, I have not asked to-day; but I reserve them for 
the occasion.” 

(“ Then,” thinks Twemlow, with his eyes shut, there are 

si ” But here collapses and does not completely recover 

until dinner is over and the Analytical has been requested to 
withdraw.) 

“ We now come,” says Veneering, “ to the point, the real 
point, of our little family consultation. Sophronia, having 
lost both father and mother, has no one to give her away.” 

“ Give her away yourself,” says Podsnap. 

“ My dear Podsnap, no. For three reasons. Firstly, 
because I couldn’t take so much upon myself when I have 
respected family friends to remember. Secondly, because 1 


A MARRIAGE CONTRACT 


131 


am not so vain as to think that I look the part. Thirdly, 
because Anastatia is a little superstitious on the subject, and 
feels averse to my giving away anybody until baby is old 
enough to be married.” 

“ What would happen if he did ? ” Podsnap inquires of 
Mrs, Veneering. 

“ My dear Mr. Podsnap, it’s v,ery foolish, I know, but I 
have an instinctive presentiment that if Hamilton gave away 
anybody else first, he would never give away baby.” Thus 
Mrs. Veneering, with her open hands pressed together, and 
each of her eight aquiline fingers looking so very like her 
one aquiline nose that the bran-new jewels on them seem 
necessary for distinction’s sake. 

“ But, my dear Podsnap,” quoth Veneering, “ there is a 
tried friend of our family who, I think and hope you will 
agree with me, Podsnap, is the friend on whom this agreeable 
duty almost naturally devolves. That friend,” saying the 
words as if the company were about a hundred and fifty in 
number, “ is now among us. That friend is Twemlow.” 

‘‘ Certainly!” from Podsnap. 

That friend,” Veneering repeats with greater firmness, 
“ is our dear good Twemlow. And I cannot sufficiently 
express to you, my dear Podsnap, the pleasure I feel in 
having this opinion of mine and Anastatia’s so readily con- 
firmed by you, that other equally familiar and tried friend 
who stands in the proud position — I mean who proudly 
stands in the position — or I ought rather to say, who places 
Anastatia and myself in the proud position of himself stand- 
ing in the simple position — of baby’s godfather.” And, 
indeed. Veneering is much relieved in mind to find that 
Podsnap betrays no jealousy of Twemlow’s elevation. 

So, it has come to pass that the spring van is strewing 
flowers on the rosy hours and on the staircase, and that 
Twemlow is surveying the ground on which he is to play his 
distinguished part to-morrow. He has already been to the 
church, and taken note of the various impediments in the 
aisle, under the auspices of an extremely dreary widow who 
opens the pews, and whose left hand appears to be in a state 
of acute rheumatism, but is in fact voluntarily doubled up to 
act as a money-box. 


132 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


And now Veneering shoots out of the Study wherein 
he is accustomed, when contemplative, to give his mind to 
the carving and gilding of the Pilgrims going to Canterbury, 
in order to show Twemlow the little flourish he has prepared 
for the trumpets of fashion, describing how that on the 
seventeenth instant, at St. James’s Church, the Reverend 
Blank Blank, assisted by the Reverend Dash Dash, united 
in the bonds of matrimony, Alfred Lammle, Esquire, of 
Sackville Street, Piccadilly, to Sophronia, only daughter of 
the late Horatio Akershem, Esquire, of Yorkshire. Also 
how the fair bride was married from the house of Hamilton 
Veneering, Esquire, of Stucconia, and was given away by 
Melvin Twemlow, Esquire, of Duke Street, St. James’s, 
second cousin to Lord Snigsworth, of Snigsworthy Park. 
While perusing which composition, Twemlow makes some 
opaque approach to perceiving that if the Reverend Blank 
Blank and the Reverend Dash Dash fail, after this intro- 
duction, to become enrolled in the list of Veneering’s dearest 
and oldest friends, they will have none but themselves to 
thank for it. 

After which, appears Sophronia (whom Twemlow has seen 
twice in his lifetime), to thank Twemlow for counterfeiting 
the late Horatio Akershem, Esquire, broadly of Yorkshire. 
And after her, appears Alfred (whom Twemlow has seen 
once in his lifetime), to do the same, and to make a pasty 
sort of glitter, as if he were constructed for candlelight only, 
and had been let out into daylight by some grand mistake. 
And after that, comes Mrs. Veneering, in a pervadingly 
aquiline state of figure, and with transparent little knobs on 
her temper, like the little transparent knob on the bridge of 
her nose, ” Worn out by worry and excitement,” as she tells 
her dear Mr. Twemlow, and reluctantly revived with cura^oa 
by the Analytical. And after that, the bridesmaids begin to 
come by railroad from various parts of the country, and to 
come like adorable recruits enlisted by a sergeant not present; 
for, on arriving at the Veneering depot, they are in a barrack 
of strangers. 

So, Twemlow goes home to Duke Street, St. James’s, to 
take a plate of mutton broth with a chop in it, and a look 
at the marriage service, in order that he may cut in at the 


A MARRIAGE CONTRACT 


133 


right place to-morrow; and he is low, and feels it dull over 
the livery stable-yard, and is distinctly aware of a dint in his 
heart, made by the most adorable of the adorable brides- 
maids. For, the poor little harmless gentleman once had 
his fancy, like the rest of us, and she didn’t answer (as she 
often does not), and he thinks the adorable bridesmaid is like 
the fancy as she was then (which she is not at all), and that 
if the fancy had not married some one else for money, but 
had married him for love, he and she would have been hap])y 
(which they wouldn’t have been), and that she has a tender- 
ness for him still (whereas her toughness is a proverb). 
Brooding over the fire, with his dried little head in his dried 
little hands, and his dried little elbows on his dried little 
knees, Twemlow is melancholy. “ No Adorable to bear me 
company here! ” thinks he. “ No Adorable at the club! A 
waste, a waste, a waste, my Twemlow!” And so drops 
asleep, and has galvanic starts all over him. 

Betimes next morning, that horrible old Lady Tippins 
(relict of the late Sir Thomas Tippins, knighted in mistake 
for somebody else by His Majesty King George the Third, 
who, while performing the ceremony, was graciously pleased 
to observe, “What, what, what? Who, who, who? Why, 
why, why?”) begins to be dyed and varnished for the 
interesting occasion. She has a reputation for giving smart 
accounts of things, and she must be at these people’s early, 
my dear, to lose nothing of the fun. Whereabout in the 
bonnet and drapery announced by her name, any fragment 
of the real woman may be concealed, is perhaps known to 
her maid; but you could easily buy all you see of her, in 
Bond Street: or you might scalp her, and peel her, and scrape 
her, and make two Lady Tippinses out of her, and yet not 
penetrate to the genuine article. She has a large gold 
eye-glass, has Lady Tippins, to survey proceedings with. 
If she had one in each eye, it might keep that other 
drooping lid up, and look more uniform. But perennial 
youth is in her artificial flowers, and her list of lovers is 
full. 

“ Mortimer, you wretch,” says Lady Tippins, turning the 
eye-glass about and about, “ where is your charge, the 
bridegroom ? ” 


134 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Give you my honour,” returns Mortimer, ‘‘ I don’t know, 
and I don’t care.” 

“ Miserable! Is that the way you do your duty? ” 

“ Beyond an impression that he is to sit upon my knee 
and be seconded at some point of the solemnities, like a 
principal at a prize-fight, I assure you I have no notion 
what my duty is,” returns Mortimer. 

Eugene is also in attendance, with a pervading air upon 
him of having presupposed the ceremony to be a funeral, 
and of being disappointed. The scene is the Vestry-room oi* 
St. James’s Church, with a number of leathery old registers 
on shelves, that might be bound in Lady Tippinses. 

But, hark! A carriage at the gate, and Mortimer’s man 
arrives, looking rather like a spurious Mephistopheles and an 
unacknowledged member of that gentleman’s family. Whom 
Lady Tippins, surveying through her eye-glass, considers 
a fine man, and quite a catch; and of whom Mortimer 
remarks, in the lowest spirits, as he approaches, “ I believe 
this is my fellow, confound him!” More carriages at the 
gate, and lo, the rest of the characters. Whom Lady Tippins, 
standing on a cushion, surveying through the eye-glass, thus 
checks off: Bride; five-and-forty if a day, thirty shillings 

a yard, veil fifteen pounds, pocket-handkerchief a present 
Bridesmaids; kept down for fear of outshining bride, con- 
sequently not girls, twelve and sixpence a yard, Veneering’ s 
flowers, snub-nosed one rather pretty but too conscious of 
her stockings, bonnets three pound ten. Twemlow; blessed 
release for the dear man if she really was his daughter, 
nervous even under the pretence that she is, well he may 
be. Mrs Veneering; never saw such velvet, say two thou- 
sand pounds as she stands, absolute jeweller’s window, father 
must have been a pawnbroker, or how could these people do 
it? Attendant unknowns; pokey.” 

Ceremony performed, register signed. Lady Tippins 
escorted out of sacred edifice by Veneering, carriages rolling 
back to Stucconia, servants with favours and flowers, Veneer- 
ing’s house reached, drawing-rooms most magnificent. Here, 
the Podsnaps await the happy party; Mr. Podsnap, with his 
hair-brushes made the most of; that imperial rocking-horse, 
Mrs. Podsnap, majestically skittish. Here, too, are Boots 


A MARRIAGE CONTRACT 


135 


and Brewer, and the two other Buffers; each Buffer with 
a flower in his buttonhole, his hair curled, and his gloves 
buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared, if anything 
had happened to the bridegroom, to be married instantly. 
Here, too, the bride’s aunt, and next relation; a widowerl 
female of a Medusa sort, in a stony cap, glaring petrifaction 
at her fellow-creatures. Here, too, the bride’s trustee; an 
oilcake-fed style of business-gentleman with mooney spec- 
tacles, and an object of much interest. Veneering launching 
himself upon this trustee as his oldest friend (which makes 
seven, Twemlow thought), and confidentially retiring with 
him into the conservatory, it is understood that Veneering 
is his co-trustee, and that they are arranging about the 
fortune. Buffers are even overheard to whisper Thir-ty 
Thou sand Pou-nds! with a smack and a relish suggestive 
of the very finest oysters. Pokey unknowns, amazed to find 
how intimately they know Veneering, pluck up spirit, fold 
their arms, and begin to contradict him before breakfast. 
What time Mrs. Veneering, carrying baby dressed as a 
bridesmaid, flits about among the company, emitting flashes of 
many-coloured lightning from diamonds, emeralds, and rubies 
The Analytical, in course of time achieving what he feels 
to be due to himself in bringing to a dignified conclusion 
several quarrels he has on hand with the pastry-cook’s men, 
announces breakfast. Dining-room no less magnificent 
than drawing-room; tables superb; all the camels out, and 
all laden. Splendid cake, covered with Cupids, silver, and 
true- lovers’ knots. Splendid bracelet, produced by Veneer- 
ing before going down, and clasped upon the arm of bride. 
Yet nobody seems to think much more of the Veneerings than 
if they were a tolerable landlord and landlady doing the 
thing in the way of business at so much a head. The bride 
and bridegroom talk and laugh apart, as has always been 
their manner; and the Buffers work their way through the 
dishes with systematic perseverance, as has always been 
their manner; and the pokey unknowns are exceedingly 
benevolent to one another in invitations to take glasses of 
champagne; but Mrs. Podsnap, arching her mane and rock- 
ing her grandest, has a far more deferential audience than 
Mrs. Veneering; and Podsnap all but does the honours. 


136 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Another dismal circumstance is, that Veneering, having 
the captivating Tippins on one side of him and the bride’s 
aunt on the other, finds it immensely difficult to keep the 
peace. For Medusa, besides unmistakably glaring petrifac- 
tion at the fascinating Tippins, follows every lively remark 
made by that dear creature with an audible snort: which 
may be referable to a chronic cold in the head, but may also 
be referable to indignation and contempt. And this snort 
being regular in its reproduction, at length comes to be 
expected by the company, who make embarrassing pauses 
when it is falling due, and by waiting for it, render it more 
emphatic when it comes. The stony aunt has likewise an 
injurious way of rejecting all dishes whereof Lady Tippins 
partakes: saying aloud when they are proffered to her, “ No, 
no, no, not for me. Take it away! ” As with a set purpose 
of implying a misgiving that if nourished upon similar meats 
she might come to be like that charmer, which would be 
a fatal consummation. Aware of her enemy. Lady Tippins 
tries a youthful sally or two, and tries the eye-glass; but 
from the impenetrable cap and snorting armour of the stony 
aunt all weapons rebound powerless. 

Another objectionable circumstance is, that the pokey 
unknowns support each other in being unimpressible. They 
persist in not being frightened by the gold and silver camels, 
and they are banded together to defy the elaborately chased 
ice-pails. They even seem to unite in some vague utterance 
of the sentiment that the landlord and landlady will make a 
pretty good profit out of this, and they almost carry them- 
selves like customers. Nor is there compensating influence 
in the adorable bridesmaids; for, having very little interest 
in the bride, and none at all in one another, those lovely 
beings become, each one on her own account, depreciatingly 
contemplative of the millinery present. While the bride- 
groom’s man, exhausted, in the back of his chair, appears to 
be improving the occasion by penitentially contemplating all 
the wrong he has ever done; the difference between him and 
his friend Eugene being that the latter, in the back of his 
chair, appears to be contemplating all the wrong he would 
like to do — particularly to the present company. 

In which state of affairs, the usual ceremonies rather dro'^** 


A MARRIAGE CONTRACT 


137 


and flag, and the splendid cake when cut by the fair hand 
of the bride has but an indigestible appearance. However, 
all the things indispensable to be said are said, and all the 
things indispensable to be done are done (including Lady 
Tippins’s yawning, falling asleep, and waking insensible), and 
there is hurried preparation for the nuptial journey to the 
Isle of Wight, and the outer air teems with brass bands and 
spectators. In full sight of whom, the malignant star of 
the Analytical has preordained that pain and ridicule shall 
befall him. For he, standing on the doorsteps to grace the 
departure, is suddenly caught a most prodigious thump on 
the side of his head with a heavy shoe, which a Buffer in the 
hall, champagne-flushed and wild of aim, has borrowed on 
the spur of the moment from the pastry-cook’s porter, to cast 
after the departing pair as an auspicious omen. 

So they all go up again into the gorgeous drawing-rooms 
— all of them flushed with breakfast, as having taken scarla- 
tina sociably — and there the combined unknowns do malig- 
nant things with their legs to ottomans, and take as much as 
possible out of the splendid furniture. And so Lady Tippins, 
quite undetermined whether to-day is the day before yester- 
day, or the day after to-morrow, or the week after next, fades 
away; and Mortimer Lightwood and Eugene fade away, and 
Twemlow fades away, and the stony aunt goes away — she 
declines to fade, proving rock to the last — and even the 
unknowns are slowly strained off, and it is all over. 

All over, that is to say, for the time being. But there is 
another time to come, and it comes in about a fortnight, 
and it comes to Mr. and Mrs. Lammle on the sands at 
Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight. 

Mr. and Mrs. Lammle have walked for some time on the 
Shanklin sands, and one may see by their footprints that 
they have not walked arm in arm, and that they have not 
walked in a straight track, and that they have walked in 
a moody humour; for the lady has prodded little spirting 
holes in the damp sand before her with her parasol, and the 
gentleman has trailed his stick after him. As if he were 
of the Mephistopheles family indeed, and had walked with 
a drooping tail. 

Do you mean to tell me, then, Sophronia ” 


138 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Thus he begins after a long silence, when Sophronia flashes 
fiercely, and turns upon him. 

“ Don’t put it upon me, sir. I ask you, do you mean to 
tell me ? ” 

Mr. Lammle falls silent again, and they walk as before. 
Mrs. Lammle opens her nostrils and bites her under-lip; 
Mr. Lammle takes his gingerous whiskers in his left hand, 
and bringing them together, frowns furtively at his beloved 
out of a thick gingerous bush. 

“ Do I mean to say! ” Mrs. Lammle after a time repeats, 
with indignation. “ Putting it on me! The unmanly dis- 
ingenuousness! ” 

Mr. Lammle stops, releases his whiskers, and looks at 
her. “The what?” 

Mrs. Lammle haughtily replies, without stopping, and 
without looking back. “ The meanness.” 

He is at her side again in a pace or two, and he retorts, 
“ That is not what you said. You said disingenuousness.” 
“What if I did?” 

“ There is no ‘ if ’ in the case. You did.” 

“ I did, then. And what of it? ” 

“ What of it? ” says Mr. Lammle. “ Have you the face 
to utter the word to me ? ” 

“The face, too!” replied Mrs. Lammle, staring at him 
with cold scorn. “ Pray, how dare you, sir, utter the word 
to me ? ” 

“ I never did.” 

As this happens to be true, Mrs. Lammle is thrown on the 
feminine resource of saying, “ I don’t care wdiat you uttered 
or did not utter.” 

After a little more walking and a little more silence, Mr. 
Lammle breaks the latter. 

“ You shall proceed in your own way. You claim a right 
to ask me do I mean to tell you. Dp I mean to tell you 
what? ” 

“ That you are a man of property ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Then you married me on false pretences? ” 

“So be it. Next comes what you mean to say. Do you 
mean to say you are a woman of property ? ” 


A MARRIAGE CONTRACT 


139 


“ No.” 

“ Then you married me on false pretences.” 

“ If you were so dull a fortune-hunter that you deceived 
yourself, or if you were so greedy and grasping that you were 
over-willing to be deceived by appearances, is it my fault, 
you adventurer ? ” the lady demands, with great asperity. 

“ I asked Veneering, and he told me you were rich.” 

“Veneering!” with great contempt. “And what does 
Veneering know about me ? ” 

“ Was he not your trustee ? ” 

“ No. I have no trustee but the one you saw on the day 
when you fraudulently married me. And his trust is not a 
very difficult one, for it is only an annuity of a hundred and 
fifteen pounds. I think there are some odd shillings or 
pence, if you are very particular.” 

Mr. Lammle bestows a by no means loving look upon the 
partner of his joys and sorrows, and he mutters something; 
but checks himself. 

“ Question for question. It is my turn again, Mrs. Lammle. 
What made you suppose me a man of property ? ” 

“ You made me suppose you so. Perhaps you will deny 
that you always presented yourself to me in that character? ” 

“ But you asked somebody, too. Come, Mrs. Lammle, 
admission for admission. You asked somebody.” 

“ I asked Veneering! ” 

“ And Veneering knew as much of me as he knew of you, 
or as anybody knows of him.” 

After more silent walking, the bride stops short, to say 
in a passionate manner: 

“ I never will forgive the Veneerings for this ! ” 

“ Neither will I,” returns the bridegroom. 

With that they walk again; she, making those angry 
spirts in the sand; he, dragging that dejected tail. The tide 
is low, and seems to have thrown them together high on the 
bare shore. A gull comes sweeping by their heads, and 
flouts them. There was a golden surface on the brown cliffs 
but now, and behold they are only damp earth. A taunting 
roar comes from the sea, and the far-out rollers mount upon 
one another, to look at the entrapped impostors, and to join 
in impish and exultant gambols. 


140 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Do you pretend to believe,” Mrs. Lammle resumes, 
sternly, “ when you talk of my marrying you for worldly 
advantages, that it was Avithin the bounds of reasonable 
probability that I would have married you for yourself? ” 

“ Again there are two sides to the question, Mrs. Lammle. 
What do you pretend to believe ? ” 

“ So you first deceive me and then insult me! ” cries the 
lady, with a heaving bosom. 

“ Not at all. I have originated nothing. The double- 
edged question was yours.” 

“Was mine!” the bride repeats, and her parasol breaks 
in her angry hand. 

His colour has turned to a livid white, and ominous marks 
have come to light about his nose, as if the finger of the 
very devil himself had, within the last few moments, touched 
it here and there. But he has repressive power, and she has 
none. 

“ Throw it away,” he coolly recommends as to the parasol; 
“ you have made it useless; you look ridiculous with it.” 

Whereupon she calls him in her rage, “ a deliberate vil- 
lain,” and so casts the broken thing from her as that it strikes 
him in falling. The finger-marks are something whiter 
for the instant, 'hut he walks on at her side. 

She bursts into tears, declaring herself the wretchedest, 
the most deceived, the worst-used of women. Then she says 
that if she had the courage to kill herself, she would do it. 
Then she calls him vile impostor. Then she asks him why, 
in the disappointment of his base speculation, he does not 
take her life with his own hand, under the present favourable 
circumstanees. Then she cries again. Then she is enraged 
again, and makes some mention of swindlers. Finally, she 
sits down crying on a block of stone, and is in all the known 
and unknown humours of her sex at once. Pending her 
changes, those aforesaid marks in his face have come and 
gone, now here now there, like white stops of a pipe on which 
the diabolical performer has played a tune. Also his livid 
lips are parted at last, as if he were breathless with running. 
Yet he is not. 

“ Now, get up, Mrs. Lammle, and let us speak reasonably.” 

She sits upon her stone, and takes no heed of him.. 


A MARRIAGE CONTRACT 


141 


“ Get up, I tell you.” 

Raising her head, she looks contemptuously in his face, 
and repeats, “You tell me! Tell me, forsooth! ” 

She affects not to know that his eyes are fastened on her 
as she droops her head again ; but her whole figure reveals 
that she knows it uneasily. 

“ Enough of this. Come! Do you hear? Get up! ” 

Yielding to his hand, she rises, and they walk again; but 
this time with their faces turned towards their place of 
residence. 

“ Mrs. Lammle, we have both been deceiving, and we have 
both been deceived. We have both been biting, and we have 
both been bitten. In a nut-shell, there’s the state of the 
case.” 

“ You sought me out ” 

“ Tut! Let us have done with that. We know very well 
how it was. Why should you and I talk about it, when you 
and I can’t disguise it? To proceed. I am -disappointed and 
cut a poor figure.” 

“ Am I no one? ” 

“ Some one — and I was coming to you, if you had waited 
a moment. You, too, are disappointed and cut a poor figure.” 

“An injured figure!” 

“You are now cool enough, Sophronia, to see that you 
can’t be injured without my being equally injured; and that 
therefore the mere word is not to the purpose. When I look 
back, I wonder how I can have been such a fool as to take 
you to so great an extent upon trust.” 

“ And when I look back ” the bride cries, interrupting. 

“ And when you look back, you wonder how you can have 
been — you’ll excuse the word ? ” 

“ Most certainly, with so much reason.” 

“ — Such a fool as to take me to so great an extent upon 
trust. But the folly is committed on both sides. I cannot 
get rid of you ; you cannot get rid of me. What follows ? ” 

“ Shame and misery,” the bride bitterly replies. 

“ I don’t know. A mutual understanding follows, and I 
think it may carry us through. Here I split my discourse 
(give me your arm, Sophronia) into three heads, to make it 
shorter and plainer. Firstly, it’s enough to have been done, 


142 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


without the mortification of being known to have been done. 
So we agree to keep the fact to ourselves. You agree ? ” 

“ If it is possible, I do.” 

“ Possible ! We have pretended well enough to one another. 
Can’t we, united, pretend to the world? Agreed. Secondly, 
we owe the Veneerings a grudge, and we owe all other people 
the grudge of wishing them to be taken in, as we ourselves 
have been taken in. Agreed ? ” 

“Yes. Agreed.” 

“We come smoothly to thirdly. You have called me an 
adventurer, Sophronia. So I am. In plain uncomplimentary 
English, so I am. So are you, my dear. So are many people. 
We agree to keep our own secret, and to work together in 
furtherance of our own schemes.” 

“ What schemes ? ” 

“ Any scheme that will bring us money. By our own 
schemes, I mean our joint interest. Agreed ? ” 

She answers, * after a little hesitation, “ I suppose so. 
Agreed.” 

“ Carried at once, you see! Now Sophronia, only half a- 
dozen words more. We know one another perfectly. Don’t 
be tempted into twitting me with the past knowledge that 
you have of me, because it is identical with the past knowledge 
that I have of you, and in twitting me, you twit yourself, 
and I don’t want to hear you do it. With this good under- 
standing established between us, it is better never done. 
To wind up all: — You have shown temper to-day, Sophronia. 
Don’t be betrayed into doing so again, because I have a Devil 
of a temper myself.” 

So the happy pair, with this hopeful marriage contract 
thus signed, sealed, and delivered, repair homeward. If, 
when those infernal finger-marks were on the white and 
breathless countenance of Alfred Lammle, Esquire, they 
denoted that he conceived the purpose of subduing his dear 
wife Mrs. Alfred Lammle, by at once divesting her of any 
lingering reality or pretence of self-respect, the purpose would 
seem to have been presently executed. The mature young 
lady has mighty little need of powder now for her downcast 
face, as he escorts her in the light of the setting sun to their 
abode of bliss. 







CHAPTER XI 


PODSNAPPERY 

Mr. Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr. 
Podsnap’s opinion. Beginning with a good inheritance, he 
had married a good inheritance, and had thriven exceedingly 
in the Marine Insurance way, and was quite satisfied. He 
never could make out why everybody was not quite satisfied, 
and he felt conscious that he set a brilliant social example in 
being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, above 
all other things, with himself. 

Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and impor- 
tance, Mr. Podsnap settled that whatever he put behind him 
he put out of existence. There was a dignified conclusiveness 
— not to add a grand convenience — in this way of getting 
rid of disagreeables, which had done much towards estab- 
lishing Mr. Podsnap in his lofty place in Mr. Podsnap’s 
satisfaction. “ I don’t want to know about it; I don’t choose 
to discuss it; I don’t admit it! ” Mr. Podsnap had even 
acquired a peculiar flourish of his right arm in often clearing 
the world of its most difficult problems, by sweeping them 
behind him (and consequently sheer away) with those words 
and a flushed face. For they affronted him. 

Mr. Podsnap’s world was not a very large world, morally; 
no, nor even geographically: seeing that although his business 
was sustained upon commerce with other countries, he con- 
sidered other countries, with that important reservation, a mis- 
take, and of their manners and customs would conclusively 
observe, “ Not English!” when, Presto! with a flourish of 
the arm, and a flush of the face, they were swept away. 
Elsewise, the world got up at eight, shaved close at a quarter- 
past, breakfasted at nine, v/ent to the City at ten, came home 
at half-past five, and dined at seven. Mr. Podsnap’s notions 


144 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


of the Arts in their integrity might have been stated thus. Lit- 
erature; large print, respectively descriptive of getting up at 
eight, shaving close at a quarter-past, breakfasting at nine, 
going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, and 
(lining at seven. Painting and Sculpture; models and por- 
traits representing Professors of getting up at eight, shaving 
close at a quarter-past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City 
at ten, coming home at half-past five, and dining at seven. 
Music; a respectable performance (without variations) on 
stringed and wind instruments, sedately expressive of 
getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter-past, break- 
fasting at nine, going to the City at ten, c?oming home at half- 
past five, and dining at seven. Nothing else to be permitted 
to those same vagrants the Arts, on pain of excommunication. 
Nothing else To Be — anywhere! 

As a so eminently respectable man, Mr. Podsnap was 
sensible of its being required of him to take Providence 
under his protection. Consequently he always knew exactly 
what Providence meant. Inferior and less respectable men 
might fall short of that mark, but Mr. Podsnap was always 
up to it. And it was very remarkable (and must have been 
very comfortable) that what Providence meant, was invariably 
what Mr. Podsnap meant. 

These may be said to have been the articles of a faith and 
school which the present chapter takes the liberty of calling, 
after its representative man, Podsnappery. They were con- 
fined within close bounds, as Mr. Podsnap’ s own head was 
confined by his shirt-collar; and they were enunciated with 
a sounding pomp that smacked of the creaking of Mr. Pod- 
snap’s own boots. 

There was a Miss Podsnap. And this young rocking-horse 
was being trained in her mother’s art of prancing in a stately 
manner without ever getting on. But the high parental 
action was not yet imparted to her, and in truth she was but 
an under-sized damsel, with high shoulders, low spirits, 
chilled elbows, and a rasped surface of nose, who seemed to 
take occasional frosty peeps out of childhood into woman- 
hood, and to shrink back again, overcome by her mother s 
head-dress and her father from head to foot — crushed 
by the mere dead-weight of Podsnappery. 


PODSNAPPERY 


145 


A certain institution in Mr. Podsnap's mind which he 
called “ the young person may be considered to have been 
embodied in Miss Podsnap, his daughter. It was an incon- 
venient and exacting institution, as requiring everything in 
the universe to be filed down and fitted to it. The question 
about everything was, would it bring a blush into the cheek 
of the young person? And the inconvenience of the young 
person was that, according to Mr. Podsnap, she seemed 
always liable to burst into blushes when there was no need at 
all. There appeared to be no line of demarcation between 
the young person’s excessive innocence, and another person’s 
guiltiest knowledge. Take Mr. Podsnap’s word for it, and 
the soberest tints of drab, white, lilac, and gray, were all 
flaming red to this troublesome Bull of a young person. 

The Podsnaps lived in a shady angle adjoining Portman 
Square. They were a kind of people certain to dwell in the 
shade, wherever they dwelt. Miss Podsnap’s life had been, 
from her first appearance on this planet, altogether of a 
shady order; for Mr. Podsnap’s young person was likely to 
get little good out of association with other young persons, 
and had therefore been restricted to companionship with not 
very congenial older persons, and with massive furniture. 
Miss Podsnap’s early views of life being principally derived 
from the reflections of it in her father’s boots, and in the 
walnut and rosewood tables of the dim drawing-room, and in 
their swarthy giants of looking-glasses, were of a sombre cast ; 
and it was not wonderful that now, when she was on most 
days solemnly tooled through the Park by the side of her 
mother in a great tall custard-coloured phaeton, she showed 
above the apron of that vehicle like a dejected young 
person sitting up in bed to take a startled look at things in 
general, and very strongly desiring to get her head under the 
counterpane again. 

Said Mr. Podsnap to Mrs. Podsnap, Georgiana is almost 
eighteen.” 

Said Mrs. Podsnap to Mr. Podsnap, assenting, “ Almost 
eighteen.” 

Said Mr. Podsnap then to Mrs. Podsnap, “ Really I 
think we should have some people on Georgiana’s birth- 
day.” 


146 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Said Mrs. Podsnap then to Mr. Podsnap, Which will 
enable us to clear off all those people who are due.” 

So it came to pass that Mr. and Mrs. Podsnap requested 
the honour of the company of seventeen friends of their souls 
at dinner; and that they substituted other friends of their 
souls for such of the seventeen original friends of their souls 
as deeply regretted that a prior engagement prevented their 
having the honour of dining with Mr. and Mrs. Podsnap, in 
pursuance of their kind invitation; and that Mrs. Podsnap 
said of all these inconsolable personages, as she checked them 
off with a pencil in her list, “ Asked, at any rate, and got 
rid of; ” and that they successfully disposed of a good many 
friends of their souls in this way, and felt their consciences 
much lightened. 

There were still other friends of their souls who were not 
entitled to be asked to dinner, but had a claim to be invited 
to come and take a haunch of mutton vapour-bath at half- 
past nine. For the clearing off of these worthies, Mrs. Pod- 
snap added a small and early evening to the dinner, and 
loofcd in at the music-shop to bespeak a well-conducted 
automaton to come and play quadrilles for a carpet dance. 

Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, and Mr. and Mrs. Veneering’s 
bran-new bride and bridegroom, were of the dinner company ; 
but the Podsnap establishment had nothing else in common 
with the Veneerings. Mr. Podsnap could tolerate taste in a 
mushroom man who stood in need of that sort of thing, but 
was far above it himself. Hideous solidity was the charac- 
teristic of the Podsnap plate. Everything was made to look 
as heavy as it could, and to take up as much room as possible. 
Everything said boastfully, “ Here you have as much of me 
in my ugliness as if I were only lead ; but I am so many ounces 
of precious metal worth so much an ounce; —wouldn’t 
you like to melt me down ? ” A corpulent straggling epergne, 
blotched all over as if it had broken out in an eruption 
rather than been ornamented, delivered this address from an 
unsightly silver platform in the centre of the table. Four 
silver wine-coolers, each furnished with four staring heads, 
each head obtrusively carrying a big silver ring in each of its 
ears, conveyed the sentiment up and down the table, and 
handed it on to the pot-bellied silver salt-cellars. All the 






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PODSNAPPERY 


147 


big silver spoons and forks widened the mouths of the com- 
pany expressly for the purpose of thrusting the sentiment 
down their throats with every morsel they ate. 

The majority of the guests were like the plate, and included 
several heavy articles weighing ever so much. But there was 
a foreign gentleman among them; whom Mr. Podsnap had 
invited after much debate with himself — believing the whole 
European continent to be in mortal alliance against the 
young person — and there was a droll disposition, not only 
on the part of Mr. Podsnap, but of everybody else, to treat 
him as if he were a child who was hard of hearing. 

As a delicate concession to this unfortunately-born for- 
eigner, Mr. Podsnap, in receiving him, had presented his wife 
as “ Madame Podsnap;” also his daughter as “ Mademoi- 
selle Podsnap,” with some inclination to add “ ma fille,” in 
which bold venture, however, he checked himself. The Ve- 
neerings being at that time the only other arrivals, he had 
added (in a condescendingly explanatory manner), Mon- 
sieur Vey-nair-reeng,” and had then subsided into English. 

“How Do You Like London?” Mr. Podsnap now in- 
quired from his station of host, as if he were administering 
something in the nature of a po\vder or potion to the deaf 
child; “London, Londres, London?” 

The foreign gentleman admired it. 

“ You find it Very Large? ” said Mr. Podsnap, spaciously. 

The foreign gentleman found it very large. 

“And Very Rich?” 

The foreign gentleman found it, without doubt, enorm^- 
ment riche. 

“ Enormously Rich, We say,” returned Mr. Podsnap, in a 
condescending manner. “ Our English adverbs do Not ter- 
minate in Mong and We Pronounce the ‘ ch ^ as if there 
were a ‘ t ’ before it. We say Ritch.” 

“ Reetch,” remarked the foreign gentleman. 

“And Do You Find, Sir,” pursued Mr. Podsnap, with 
dignity, “ Many Evidences that Strike You, of our British 
Constitution in the Streets Of The World^s Metropolis, 
London, Londres, London ? ” 

The foreign gentleman begged to be pardoned, but did 
not altogether understand. 


148 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ The Constitution Britannique,” Mr. Podsnap explained, 
as if he were teaching in an infant school. “ We Say British, 
But You Say Britannique, You Know ” (forgivingly, as if 
that were not his fault). “ The Constitution, Sir.’^ 

The foreign gentleman said, “ Mais, yees; I know eem.” 

A youngish sallowish gentleman in spectacles, with a 
lumpy forehead, seated in a supplementary chair at a corner 
of the table, here caused a profound sensation by saying, in a 
raised voice, “ Esker,” and then stopping dead. 

Mais oui,” said the foreign gentleman, turning towards 
him. “ Est-ce que? Quoi done? ” 

But the gentleman with the lumpy forehead having for 
the time delivered himself of all that he found behind his 
lumps, spake for the time no more. 

“ I Was Inquiring,’’ said Mr. Podsnap, resuming the thread 
of his discourse, “ Whether You Have Observed in our Streets 
as We should say. Upon our Pavvy as You would say, any 
Tokens ” 

The foreign gentleman with patient courtesy entreated 
pardon; But what was tokenz? ” 

“ Marks,” said Mr. Podsnap; “ Signs, you know, Appear- 
ances — Traces.” 

” Ah! Of a Orse? ” inquired the foreign gentleman. 

“We call it Horse,” said Mr. Podsnap, with forbearance. 
“ In England, Angleterre, England, We Aspirate the ‘ H,’ 
and We Say ‘ Horse.’ Only our Lower Classes Say 
‘ Orse! ’ ” 

“Pardon,” said the foreign gentleman; “I am alwiz 
wrong! ” 

“ Our Language,” said Mr. Podsnap, with a gracious con- 
sciousness of being always right, “ is Difficult. Ours is a 
Copious Language, and Trying to Strangers. I will not 
Pursue my Question.” 

But the lumpy gentleman, unwilling to give it up, again 
madly said, “ Esker,” and again spake no more. 

“ It merely referred,” Mr. Podsnap explained, with a sense 
of meritorious proprietorship, “ to Our Constitution, Sir. 
We Englishmen are Very Proud of our Constitution, Sir. It 
Was Bestowed Upon Us By Providence. No Other Country 
is so Favoured as This Country.” 


PODSNAPPERY 149 

“ And ozer countries ? — ” the foreign gentleman was 
beginning, when Mr. Podsnap put him right again. 

“ We do not say Ozer; we say Other; the letters are ‘ T ’ 
and ‘ H;’ you say Tay and Aish, You Know;” (still with 
clemency). “ The sound is ‘ th ’ — ‘ th! ’ ” 

“And oth^Y countries,” said the foreign gentleman. “They 
do how?” 

“ They do. Sir,” returned Mr. Podsnap, gravely shaking 
his head ; “ they do — I am sorry to be obliged to say it — as 
they do.” 

“It was a little particular of Providence,” said the foreign 
gentleman, laughing; “ for the frontier is not large.” 

“ Undoubtedly,” assented Mr. Podsnap; “ But So it is. 
It was the Charter of the Land. This island was Blest, Sir, to 
the Direct Exclusion of such Other Countries as — as there 
may happen to be. And if we were all Englishmen present, 
I would say,” added Mr. Podsnap, looking round upon his 
compatriots, and sounding solemnly with his theme, “ that 
there is in the Englishman a combination of qualities, a 
modesty, an independence, a responsibility, a repose, com- 
bined with an absence of everything calculated to call a blush 
into the cheek of a young person, which one would seek in 
vain among the Nations of the Earth.” 

Having delivered this little summary, Mr. Podsnap’s face 
flushed, as he thought of the remote possibility of its being 
at all qualified by any prejudiced citizen of any other coun- 
try; and, with his favourite right-arm flourish, he put the 
rest of Europe and the whole of Asia, Africa, and America 
nowhere. 

The audience were much edified by this passage of words; 
and Mr. Podsnap, feeling that he was in rather remarkable 
force to-day, became smiling and conversational. 

“ Has anything more been heard. Veneering,” he inquired, 
“of the lucky legatee?” 

“ Nothing more,” returned Veneering, “ than that he has 
come into possession of the property. I am told people now 
call him The Golden Dustman. I mentioned to you some 
time ago, I think, that the young lady whose intended hus- 
band was murdered is daughter to a clerk of mine ? ” 

“ Yes, you told me that,” said Podsnap; “ and by-the-bye, 


150 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


«I wish you would tell it again here, for it’s a curious coin- 
cidence — curious that the first news of the discovery should 
have been brought straight to your table (when I was there), 
and curious that one of your people should have been so 
nearly interested in it. Just relate that, will you? ” 

Veneering was more than ready to do it, for he had pros- 
pered exceedingly upon the Harmon Murder, and had turned 
the social distinction it conferred upon him to the account 
of making several dozen of bran-new bosom-friends. Indeed, 
such another lucky hit would almost have set him up in 
that way to his satisfaction. So, addressing himself to the 
most desirable of his neighbours, while Mrs. Veneering 
secured the next most desirable, he plunged into the case, and 
emerged from it twenty minutes afterwards with a Bank 
Director in his arms. In the meantime. Mrs. Veneering had 
dived into the same waters for a wealthy Ship-Broker, and 
had brought him up, safe and sound, by the hair. Then 
Mrs. Veneering had to relate, to a larger circle, how she had 
been to see the girl, and how she was really pretty, and 
(considering her station) presentable. And this she did with 
such a successful display of her eight aquiline fingers and 
their encircling jewels, that she happily laid hold of a drifting 
General Officer, his wife and daughter, and not only restored 
their animation, which had become suspended, but made 
them lively friends within an hour. 

Although Mr. Podsnap would in a general way have 
highly disapproved of Bodies in rivers as ineligible topics 
with reference to the cheek of the young person, he had, as 
one may say, a share in this affair which made him a part 
proprietor. As its returns were immediate, too, in the way 
of restraining the company from speechless contemplation 
of the wine-coolers, it paid, and he was satisfied. 

And now the haunch of mutton vapour-bath having 
received a gamey infusion, and a few last touches of sweets 
and coffee, was quite ready, and the bathers came; but not 
before the discreet automaton had got behind the bars of the 
piano music-desk, and there presented the appearance of a 
captive languishing in .a rosewood jail. And who now so 
pleasant or so well assorted as Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Lammle, 
he all sparkle, she all gracious contentment, both at occasional 


PODSNAPPERY 


151 


intervals exchanging looks like partners at cards, who played 
a game against All England ? 

There was not much youth among the bathers, but there 
was no youth (the young person always excepted) in the 
articles of Podsnappery. Bald bathers folded their arms and 
talked to Mr. Podsnap on the hearthrug; sleek- whiskered 
bathers, with hats in their hands, lunged at Mrs. Podsnap 
and retreated; prowling bathers went about looking into 
ornamental boxes and bowls as if they had suspicions of lar- 
ceny on the part of the Podsnaps, and expected to find 
something they had lost at the bottom; bathers of the gentler 
sex sat silently comparing ivory' shoulders. All this time 
and always, poor little Miss Podsnap, whose tiny efforts 
(if she had made any) were swallowed up in the magnificence 
of her mother’s rocking, kept herself as much out of sight 
and mind as she could, and appeared to be counting on many 
dismal returns of the day. It was somehow understood, as 
a secret article in the state proprieties of Podsnappery, that 
nothing must be said about the day. Consequently this 
young damsel’s nativity was hushed up and looked over, as if 
it were agreed on all hands that it would have been better 
that she had never been born. 

The Lammles were so fond of the dear Veneerings that 
they could not for some time detach themselves from those 
excellent friends; but at length, either a very open smile on 
Mr. Lammle’s part, or a very secret elevation of one of his 
gingerous eyebrows — certainly the one or the other — 
seemed to say to Mrs. Lammle, “Why don’t you play?” 
And so, looking about her, she saw Miss Podsnap, and seem- 
ing to say responsively, “ That card ? ” and to be answered 
“ Yes,” went and sat beside Miss Podsnap. 

Mrs. Lammle was overjoyed to escape into a corner for a 
little quiet talk. 

It promised to be a very quiet talk, for Miss Podsnap 
replied in a flutter, “ Oh I Indeed, it’s very kind of you, but 
I am afraid I don’t talk.” 

“ Let us make a beginning,” said the insinuating Mrs. 
Lammle, with her best smile. 

“ Oh! I am afraid you’ll find me very dull. But Ma 
talks!” 


152 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


That was plainly to be seen, for Ma was talking then 
at her usual canter, with arched head and mane, opened eyes 
and nostrils. 

“ Fond of reading, perhaps? ” 

“ Yes. At least I — don’t mind that so much,” returned 
Miss Podsnap. 

“ M — m — m — m — music.” So insinuating was Mrs. 
Lamnde that she got half-a-dozen m’s into the word before 
she got it out. 

“ I haven’t nerve to play even if I could. Ma plays.” 

(At exactly the same canter, and with a certain flourishing 
appearance of doing something, Ma did, in fact, occasionally 
take a rock upon the instrument.) 

“ Of course you like dancing? ” 

“ Oh no, I don’t,” said Miss Podsnap. 

“ No ? With your youth and attractions ? Truly, my dear, 
you surprise me ! ” 

“ I can’t say,” observed Miss Podsnap, after hesitating 
considerably, and stealing several timid looks at Mrs. Lam- 
mle’s carefully arranged face, “ how I might have liked 
it if I had been a — you won’t mention it, will you ? ” 

“ My dear! Never! ” 

“ No, I am sure you won’t. I can’t say then how I should 
have liked it, if I had been a chimney-sweep on May- 
day.” 

“Gracious!” was the exclamation which amazement 
elicited from Mrs. Lammle. 

“ There! I knew you’d wonder. But you won’t mention 
it, will you ? ” 

“ Upon my word, my love,” said Mrs. Lammle, “ you make 
me ten times more desirous, now I talk to you, to know 
you well, than I was when I sat over yonder looking at 
you. How I wish we could be real friends! Try me as 
a real friend. Come! Don’t fancy me a frumpy old married 
woman, my dear; I was married but the other day, you 
know; I am dressed as a bride now, you see. About the 
chimney-sweeps ? ” 

“Hush! Ma’ 11 hear.” 

“ She can’t hear from where she sits.” 

“ Don’t you be too sure of that,” said Miss Podsnap, in 


PODSNAPPERY 153 

a lower voice. “ Well, what I mean is, that they seem to 
enjoy it.” 

‘‘ And that perhaps you would have enjoyed it, if you had 
been one of them ? ” 

Miss Podsnap nodded significantly. 

“ Then you don’t enjoy it now? ” 

“How is it possible?” said Miss Podsnap. “Oh, it is 
such a dreadful thing! If I was wicked enough — and strong 
enough — to kill anybody, it should be my partner.” 

This was such an entirely new view of the Terpsichorean 
art as socially practised, that Mrs. Lammle looked at her 
young friend in some astonishment. Her young friend sat 
nervously twiddling her fingers in a pinioned attitude, as if 
she were trying to hide her elbows. But this latter Utopian 
object (in short sleeves) always appeared to be the great 
inoffensive aim of her existence. 

“ It sounds horrid, don’t it?” said Miss Podsnap, with a 
penitential face. 

Mrs. Lammle, not very well knowing what to answer, 
resolved herself into a look of smiling encouragement. 

“ But it is, and it always has been,” pursued Miss Podsnap, 
“ such a trial to me! I so dread being awful. And it is so 
awful! No one knows what I suffered at Madame Sau- 
teuse’s, where I learnt to dance and make presentation- 
curtseys, and other dreadful things — or at least where they 
tried to teach me. Ma can do it.” 

“ At any rate, my love,” said Mrs. Lammle, soothingly, 
“ that’s over.” 

“ Yes, it’s over,” returned Miss Podsnap, “ but there’s 
nothing gained by that. It’s worse here than at Madame 
Sauteuse’s. Ma was there, and Ma’s here; but Pa wasn’t 
there, and company wasn’t there, and there were not real 
partners there. Oh, there’s Ma speaking to the man at the 
piano! Oh, there’s Ma going up to somebody! Oh, I know 
she’s going to bring him to me! Oh, please don’t, please 
don’t, please don’t! Oh, keep away, keep away, keep away! ” 
These pious ejaculations Miss Podsnap uttered with her eyes 
closed, and her head leaning back against the wall. 

But the Ogre advanced under the pilotage of Ma, and IMa 
said, “ Georgiana, Mr. Grompus,” and the Ogre clutched his 


154 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


victim and bore her off to his castle in the top couple. Then 
the discreet automaton who had surveyed his ground, played 
a blossomless tuneless “ set,” and sixteen disciples of Pod- 
snappery went through the figures of — 1, Getting up at 
eight and shaving close at a quarter-past — 2, Breakfasting 
at nine — 3, Going to the City at ten — 4, Coming home at 
half-past five — 5, Dining at seven, and the grand chain. 

While these solemnities were in progress, Mr, Alfred 
Lammle (most loving of husbands) approached the chair of 
Mrs. Alfred Lammle (most loving of wives), and bending over 
the back of it, trifled for some few seconds with Mrs. 
Lammle’s bracelet. Slightly in contrast with this brief airy 
toying, one might have noticed a certain dark attention in 
Mrs. Lammle’s face as she said some words with her eyes on 
Mr. Lammle’s waistcoat, and seemed in return to receive some 
lesson. But it was all done as a breath passes from a mirror. 

And now, the grand chain riveted to the last link, the dis- 
creet automaton ceased, and the sixteen, two and two, took 
a walk among the furniture. And herein the unconsciousness 
of the Ogre Grompus was pleasantly conspicuous; for that 
complacent monster, believing that he was giving Miss 
Podsnap a treat, prolonged to the utmost stretch of possibility 
a peripatetic account of an archery meeting; while his 
victim, heading the procession of sixteen as it slowly circled 
about, like a revolving funeral, never raised her eyes except 
once to steal a glance at Mrs. Lammle, expressive of intense 
despair. 

At length the procession was dissolved by the violent 
arrival of a nutmeg, before w’hich the drawing-room door 
bounced open as if it were a cannon-ball; and while that 
fragrant article, dispersed through several glasses of coloured 
warm water, was going the round of society, Miss Podsnap 
returned to her seat by her new friend. 

“ Oh, my goodness,” said Miss Podsnap. That’s over! 
I hope you didn’t look at me.” 

“My dear, why not?” 

“ Oh, I know all about myself,” said Miss Podsnap. 

“ ril tell you something I know about you, my dear,” 
returned Mrs. Lammle in her winning way, “ and that is, 
you are most unnecessarily shy.” 


PODSNAPPERY 


155 


“ Ma ain’t,” said Miss Podsnap. “ — I detest you! Go 
along!” This shot was levelled under her breath at the 
gallant Grompus for bestowing an insinuating smile upon her 
in passing. 

“ Pardon me if I scarcely see, my dear Miss Podsnap,” 
Mrs. Lammle was beginning, when the young lady inter- 
posed. 

“ If we are going to be real friends (and I suppose we are, 
for you are the only person who ever proposed it) don’t let 
us be awful. It’s awful enough to be Miss Podsnap, without 
being called so. Call me Georgiana.” 

“ Dearest Georgiana ” Mrs. Lammle began again. 

“ Thank you,” said Miss Podsnap. 

Dearest Georgiana, pardon me if I scarcely see, my love, 
why your mamma’s not being shy is a reason why you should 
be.” 

“ Don’t you really see that? ” asked Miss Podsnap, pluck- 
ing at her fingers in a troubled manner, and furtively casting 
her eyes now on Mrs. Lammle, now on the ground. “ Then 
perhaps it isn’t?” 

“ My dearest Georgiana, you defer much too readily to my 
poor opinion. Indeed it is not even an opinion, darling, for 
it is only a confession of my dulness.” 

“ Oh, you are not dull,” returned Miss Podsnap. I am 
dull, but you couldn’t have made me talk if you were.” 

Some little touch of conscience answering this perception 
of her having gained a purpose, called bloom enough into 
Mr6. Lammle’ s face to make it look brighter as she sat 
smiling her best smile on her dear Georgiana, and shaking 
her head with an affectionate playfulness. Not that it meant 
anything, but that Georgiana seemed to like it. 

“ What I mean is,” pursued Georgiana, “ that Ma being 
so endowed with awfulness, and Pa being so endowed with 
awfulness, and there being so much awfulness everywhere — 
I mean, at least, everywhere where I am — perhaps it makes 
me who am so deficient in awfulness, and frightened at it — 
I say it very badly — I don’t know whether you can under- 
stand what I mean ? ” 

‘‘ Perfectly, dearest Georgiana!” Mrs. Lammle was pro- 
ceeding with every reassuring wile, when the head of that 


156 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


young lady suddenly went back against the wall again, and 
her eyes closed. 

“ Oh! there’s Ma being awful with somebody with a 
glass in his eye! Oh, I know she’s going to bring him here! 
Oh, don’t bring him, don’t bring him! Oh, he’ll be my 
partner with his glass in his eye! Oh, what shall I do!” 
This time Georgiana accompanied her ejaculations with taps 
of her feet upon the floor, and was altogether in quite a 
desperate condition. But there was no escape from the 
majestic Mrs Podsnap’s production of an ambling stranger, 
with one eye screwed up into extinction and the other framed 
and glazed, who, having looked down out of that organ, 
as if he descried Miss Podsnap at the bottom of some per- 
pendicular shaft, brought her to the surface, and ambled 
off with her. And then the captive at the piano played 
another “ set,” expressive of his mournful aspirations after 
freedom, and other sixteen went through the former melan- 
choly motions, and the ambler took Miss Podsnap for 'a 
furniture walk, as if he had struck out an entirely original 
conception. 

In the meantime a stray personage of a meek demeanour, 
who had wandered to the hearthrug and got among the heads 
of tribes assembled there in conference with Mr. Podsnap, 
eliminated Mr. Podsnap’s flush and flourish by a highly 
impolite remark; no less than a reference to the circumstance 
that some half-dozen peojfle had lately died in the streets of 
starvation. It was clearly ill-timed, after dinner. It was 
not adapted to the cheek of the young person. It was not in 
good taste. 

I don’t believe it,” said Mr. Podsnap, putting it behind 

him. 

The meek man was afraid we must take it as proved, be- 
cause there were the Inquests and the Registrar’s returns. 

“ Then it was their own fault,” said Mr. Podsnap. 

Veneering and other elders of tribes commended this way 
out of it. At once a short cut and a broad road. 

The man of weak demeanour intimated that truly it would 
seem from the facts as if starvation had been forced upon 
the culprits in question — as if, in their wretched manner, 
they had made their weak protests against it — as if they 


PODSNAPPERY 


157 


would have taken the liberty of staving it off if they could 
— as if they would rather not have been starved upon the 
whole, if perfectly agreeable to all parties. 

“ There is not,” said Mr. Podsnap, flushing angrily, “ there 
is not a country in the world, sir, where so noble a provision 
is made for the poor as in this country.” 

The meek man was quite willing to concede that, but 
perhaps it rendered the matter even worse, as showing that 
there must be something appallingly wrong somewhere. 

“ Where? ” said Mr. Podsnap. 

The meek man hinted, Wouldn’t it be well to try, very 
seriously, to And out where? 

Ah! ” said Mr. Podsnap. ‘‘ Easy to say somewhere; not 
so easy to say where! But I see what you are driving at. 
I knew it from the first. Centralization. No. Never with 
my consent. Not English.” 

An approving murmur arose from the heads of tribes; as 
saying, “ There you have him! Hold him! ” 

He was not aware (the meek man submitted of himself) 
that he was driving at any ization. He had no favourite 
ization that he knew of. But he certainly was more stag- 
gered by these terrible occurrences than he was by names, of 
howsoever so many syllables. Might he ask, was dying of 
destitution and neglect necessarily English ? 

“ You know what the population of London is, I suppose,” 
said Mr. Podsnap. 

The meek man supposed he did, but supposed that had 
absolutely nothing to do with it, if its laws were well ad- 
ministered. 

“ And you know; at least I hope you know,” said Mr. Pod- 
snap, with severity, “ that Providence has declared that you 
shall have the poor always with you ? ” 

The meek man also hoped he knew that. 

“ I am glad to hear it,” said Mr. Podsnap, with a por- 
tentous air. “ I am glad to hear it. It will render you 
cautious how you fly in the face of Providence.” 

In reference to that absurd and irreverent conventional 
phrase, the meek man said, for which Mr. Podsnap was not 
responsible, he the meek man had no fear of doing anything 
so impossible; but 


158 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


But Mr. Podsnap felt that the time had come for flushing 
and flourishing this meek man down for good. So he said : 

“ I must decline to pursue this painful discussion. It is 
not pleasant to my feelings. It is repugnant to my feelings 
I have said that I do not admit these things. I have also said 
that if they do occur (not that I admit it), the fault lies with 
the sufferers themselves. It is not for me” — Mr. Podsnap 
pointed “ me ” forcibly, as adding by implication, though 
it may be all very well for you — “ it is not for me to im- 
pugn the workings of Providence. I know better than 
that, I trust, and I have mentioned what the intentions of 
Providence are. Besides,” said Mr. Podsnap, flushing high 
up among his hair-brushes, with a strong consciousness of 
personal affront, “ the subject is a very disagreeable one. I 
will go so far as to say it is an odious one. It is not one 
to be introduced among our wives and young persons, and 

I ” He finished with that flourish of his arm which 

added more expressively than any words, And I remove it 
from the face of the earth. 

Simultaneously with this quenching of the meek man’.s 
ineffectual fire, Georgiana having left the ambler up a lane 
of sofa, in a No Thoroughfare of back drawing-room, to find 
his own way out, came back to Mrs. Lammle. And who 
should be with Mrs. Lammle but Mr. Lammle. So fond of her ! 

“ Alfred, my love, here is my friend. Georgiana, dearest 
girl, you must like my husband next to me.” 

Mr. Lammle was proud to be so soon distinguished by 
this special commendation to Miss Podsnap’s favour. But if 
Mr. Lammle were prone to be jealous of his dear Sophronia’s 
friendships, he would be jealous of her feeling towards Miss 
Podsnap. 

“ Say Georgiana, darling,” interposed his wife. 

Towards — shall I ? — Georgiana.” hlr. Lammle uttered 
the name, with a delicate curve of his right hand, from his 
lips outward. “For never have I known Sophronia (who is 
not apt to take sudden likings) so attracted and so captivated 
as she is by shall I once more ? Georgiana.” 

The object of this homage sat uneasily enough in receipt 
of it, and then said, turning to Mrs. Lammle, much em- 
barrassed : 


PODSNAPPERY 


159 


I wonder what you like me for! I am sure I can’t think.” 

“ Dearest Georgiana, for yourself. For your difference 
from all around you.” 

“ Well! That may be. For 1 think I like you for your 
difference from all around me,” said Georgiana with a smile 
of relief. 

“ We must be going with the rest,” observed Mrs. Lammle, 
rising with a show of unwillingness, amidst a general dis- 
persal. “ We are real friends, Georgiana dear.” 

“ Real.” 

“ Good night, dear girl! ” 

She had established an attraction over the shrinking 
nature upon which her smiling eyes were fixed, for Georgiana 
held her hand while she answered in a secret and half- 
frightened tone : 

“ Don’t forget me when you are gone away. And come 
again soon. Good night! ” 

Charming to see Mr. and Mrs. Lammle taking leave so 
gracefully, and going down the stairs so lovingly and sweetly. 
Not quite so charming to see their smiling faces fall and 
brood as they dropped moodily into separate corners of their 
little carriage. But, to be sure, that was a sight behind the 
scenes, which nobody saw, and which nobody was meant 
to see. 

Certain big, heavy vehicles, built on the model of the 
Podsnap plate, took away the heavy articles of guests weigh- 
ing ever so much; and the less valuable articles got away 
after their various manners; and the Podsnap plate was put 
to bed. As Mr. Podsnap stood with his back to the draw- 
ing-room fire, pulling up his shirt-collar, like a veritable 
cock of the walk literally pluming himself in the midst of 
his possessions, nothing would have astonished him more 
than an intimation that Miss Podsnap, or any other young 
person properly born and bred, could not be exactly put 
away like the plate, brought out like the plate, polished like 
the plate, counted, weighed, and valued like the plate. That 
such a young person could possibly have a morbid vacancy 
in the heart for anything younger than the plate, or less 
monotonous than the plate; or that such a young person’s 
thoughts could try to scale the region bounded on the north. 


160 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


south, east, and west, by the plate; was a monstrous imagi- 
nation which he would on the spot have flourished into space. 
This perhaps in some sort arose from Mr. Podsnap’s blush- 
ing young person being, so to speak, all cheek; whereas 
there is a possibility that there may be young persons of 
a rather more complex organisation. 

If Mr. Podsnap, pulling up his shirt-collar, could only 
have heard himself called “ that fellow ” in a certain short 
dialogue which passed between Mr. and Mrs. Lammle in 
their opposite corners of their little carriage, rolling home! 
“ Sophronia, are you awake ? 

Am I likely to be asleep, sir? ” 

“ Very likely, I should think, after that fellow's company. 
Attend to what I am going to say.” 

“ I have attended to what you have already said, have 
I not ? What else have I been doing all night ? ” 

“Attend, I tell you ” (in a raised voice), “ to what I am 
going to say. Keep close to that idiot girl. Keep her under 
your thumb. You have her fast, and you are not to let her 
go. Do you hear ? ” 

“ I hear you.” 

“ I foresee there is money to be made out of this, besides 
taking that fellow down a peg. We owe each other money, 
yon know.” 

Mrs. Lammle winced a little at the reminder, but only 
enough to shake her scents and essences anew into the 
atmosphere of the little carriage, as she settled herself afresh 
into her own dark corner. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN’s BROW 

Mr. Mortimer Lightwood and Mr. Eugene Wray burn 
took a coffee-house dinner together in Mr. Lightwood’s office. 
They had newly agreed to set up a joint establishment to- 
gether. They had taken a bachelor cottage near Hampton, 
on the brink of the Thames, with a lawn, and a boat-house, 
and all things fitting, and were to float with the stream through 
the summer and the Long Vacation. 

It was not summer yet, but spring; and it was not gentle 
spring ethereally mild, as in Thomson’s Seasons, but nipping 
spring with an easterly wind, as in Johnson’s, Jackson’s, 
Dickson’s, Smith’s, and Jones’s Seasons. The grating wind 
sawed rather than blew; and as it sawed, the sawdust 
whirled about the sawpit. Every street w^as a sawpit, and 
there were no top-sawyers; every passenger was an under- 
sawyer, with the sawdust blinding him and choking him. 

That mysterious paper currency which circulates in London 
when the wind blows, gyrated here and there and every- 
where. Whence can it come, whither can it go? It hangs 
on every bush, flutters in every tree, is caught flying by the 
electric wires, haunts every enclosure, drinks at every pump, 
cowers at every grating, shudders upon every spot of grass, 
seeks rest in vain behind the legions of iron rails. In Paris, 
where nothing is wasted, costly and luxurious city though it 
be, but where wonderful human ants creep out of holes and 
pick up every scrap, there is no such thing. There, it blows 
nothing but dust. There, sharp eyes and sharp stomachs 
reap even the east wind, and get something out of it. 

The wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. The shrubs 
wrung their many hands, bemoaning that they had been 
over-persuaded by the sun to bud; the young leaves pined: 


162 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


the sparrows repented of their early marriages, like men and 
women; the colours of the rainbow were discernible, not in 
floral spring, but in the faces of the people whom it nibbled 
and pinched. And ever the wind sawed, and the sawdust 
whirled. 

When the spring evenings are too long and light to shut 
out, and such weather is rife, the city which Mr. Podsnap so 
explanatorily called London, Londres, London, is at its worst. 
Such a black shrill city, combining the qualities of a smoky 
house and a scolding wife; such a gritty city; such a hopeless 
city, with no rent in the leaden canopy of its sky; such 
a beleaguered city, invested by the great Marsh Forces of 
Essex and Kent. So the two old schoolfellows felt it to be, 
as, their dinner done, they turned towards the fire to smoke. 
Young Blight was gone, the coffee-house waiter was gone, the 
plates and dishes were gone, the wine was going — but not in 
the same direction. 

“ The wind sounds up here,” quoth Eugene, stirring the 
fire, “as if we were keeping a lighthouse. I wish we 
were.” 

“ Don’t you think it would bore us? ” Lightwood asked. 

“ Not more than any other place. And there w^ould be 
no Circuit to go. But that’s a selfish consideration, personal 
to me.” 

“ And no clients to come,” added Lightwood. “ Not that 
that’s a selfish consideration at all personal to me” 

“If we were on an isolated rock in a stormy sea,” said 
Eugene, smoking, with his eyes on the fire, “ Lady Tippins 
couldn’t put off to visit us, or, better still, might put off and 
get swaiiiped. People couldn’t ask one to wedding break- 
fasts. There would be no Precedents to hammer at, except 
the plain-sailing Precedent of keeping the light up. It would 
be exciting to look out for wrecks.” 

“ But otherwise,” suggested Lightwood, “ there might be 
a degree of sameness in the life.” 

“ I have thought of that also,” said Eugene, as if he really 
had been considering the subject in its various bearings with 
an eye to the business; “ but it would be a defined and limited 
monotony. It would not extend beyond two people. Now 
it’s a question with me, Mortimer, whether a monotony 


THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN's BROW 163 

defined with that precision and limited to that extent might 
not be more endurable than the unlimited monotony of one’s 
fellow-creatures.” 

As Lightwood laughed and passed the wine, he remarked, 
“We shall have an opportunity, in our boating summer, of 
trying the question.” 

“ An imperfect one,” Eugene acquiesced, with a sigh, “ but 
so we shall. I hope we may not prove too much for one 
another.” 

“ Now regarding your respected father,” said LightAvood, 
bringing him to a subject they had expressly appointed to 
discuss: always the most slippery eel of eels of subjects to 
lay hold of. 

“ Yes, regarding my respected father,” assented Eugene, 
settling himself in his arm-chair. “ I would rather have 
approached my respected father by candlelight, as a theme 
requiring a little artificial brilliancy; but we will take him 
by twilight, enlivened with a glow of Wallsend.” 

He stirred the fire again as he spoke, and having made it 
blaze, resumed. 

“ My respected father has found, down in the parental 
neighbourhood, a wife for his not-generally-respected son.” 

“ With some money, of course?” 

“ With some money, of course, or he would not have found 
her. My respected father — let me shorten the dutiful 
tautology by substituting in future M. R. F., which sounds 
military, and rather like the Duke of Wellington.” 

“ What an absurd fellow you are, Eugene! ” 

“ Not at all, I assure you. M. R. F. having always in the 
clearest manner provided (as he calls it) for his children by 
pre-arranging from the hour of the birth of each, and some- 
times from an earlier period, what the devoted little victim’s 
calling and course in life should be, M. R. F. pre-arranged 
for myself that I was to be the barrister I am (with the slight 
addition of an enormous practice, which has not accrued), 
and also the married man I am not.” 

“ The first you have often told me.” 

“ The first I have often told you. Considering myself 
sufficiently incongruous on my legal eminence, I have until 
now suppressed my domestic destiny. You know M. R. F., 


164 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


but not as well as I do. If you knew him as well as I do, 
he would amuse you.” 

“ Filially spoken, Eugene! ” 

“ Perfectly so, believe me; and with every sentiment of 
affectionate deference towards M. R. F. But if he amuses 
me, I can’t help it. When my eldest brother was born, of 
course the rest of us knew (I mean the rest of us would 
have known, if we had been in existence) that he was heir 
to the Family Embarrassments — we call it before company 
the Family Estate. But when my second brother was going 
to be born by and by, ‘ this,’ says M. R. F., ‘ is a little 
]ullar of the church.’ fV as born, and became a pillar of the 
church; a very shaky one. My third brother appeared, 
considerably in advance of his engagement to my mother; 
but M. R. F., not at all put out by surprise, instantly declared 
him a Circumnavigator. Was pitchforked into the Navy, 
but has not circumnavigated. I announced myself, and was 
disposed of with the highly satisfactory results embodied 
before you. When my younger brother was half an hour old, 
it was settled by M. R. F. that he should have a mechanical 
genius, and so on. Therefore I say that M. R. F. amuses me.” 

“ Touching the lady, Eugene ? ” 

“ There M. R. F. ceases to be amusing, because my inten- 
tions are opposed to touching the lady.” 

“ Do you know her? ” 

‘‘ Not in the least.” 

“ Hadn’t you better see her?” 

“ My dear Mortimer, you have studied my character. 
Could I possibly go down there, labelled ‘ Eligible. On 
View,’ and meet the lady, similarly labelled? Anything to 
carry out M. R. F.’s arrangements, I am sure, with the 
greatest pleasure — except matrimony. Could I possibly 
support it ? I, so soon bored, so constantly, so fatally ? ” 

“ But you are not a consistent fellow, Eugene.” 

“ In susceptibility to boredom,” returned that worthy, “ I 
assure you I am the most consistent of mankind.” 

“ Why, it was but now that you were dwelling on the 
advantages of a monotony of two.” 

“ In a lighthouse Do me the justice to remember the 
condition. In a lighthouse.” 


THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN’s BROW 165 

Mortimer laughed again, and Eugene, having laughed too 
for the first time, as if he found himself on reflection rather 
entertaining, relapsed into his usual gloom, and drowsily said, 
as he enjoyed his cigar, “ No, there is no help for it; one of 
the prophetic deliveries of M. R. F. must for ever remain 
unfulfilled. With every disposition to oblige him, he must 
submit to a failure.” 

It had grown darker as they talked, and the wind w’as 
sawing and the sawdust was whirling outside paler windows 
The underlying churchyard w^as already settling into deep 
dim shade, and the shade was creeping up to the houseto|:s 
among which they sat. “ As if,” said Eugene, “ as if the 
churchyard ghosts were rising.” 

He had walked to the window with his cigar in his mouth, 
to exalt its flavour by comparing the fireside with the outside, 
when he stopped midway on his return to his arm-chair, and 
said : 

“ Apparently one of the ghosts has lost its way, and dropped 
in to be directed. Look at this phantom! ” 

Lightwood, whose back was towards the door, turned his 
head, and there, in the darkness of the entry, stood a some- 
thing in the likeness of a man: to whom he addressed the 
not irrelevant inquiry, Who the devil are you ? ” 

I ask your pardons. Governors,” replied the ghost, in a 
hoarse double-barrelled whisper, “ but might either on you 
be Lawyer Lightwood ? ” 

“What do you mean by not knocking at the door?” 
demanded Mortimer. 

“ I ask your pardons. Governors,” replied the ghost, as 
before, “ but probable you was not aware your door stood 
open.” 

“ What do you want? ” 

Hereunto the ghost again hoarsely replied, in its double- 
barrelled manner, “ I ask your pardons. Governors, but might 
one on you be Lawyer Lightw'ood?” 

“ One of us is,” said the owner of that name. 

“ All right. Governors Both,” returned the ghost, carefully 
closing the room door; “ ’tickler business.” 

Mortimer lighted the candles. They showed the visitor to 
be an ill-looking visitor with a squinting leer, who, as he spoke, 


166 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


fumbled at an old sodden fur cap, formless and mangey, that 
looked like a furry animal, dog or cat, puppy or kitten, 
drowned and decaying. 

“Now,’’ said Mortimer, “what is it?” 

“ Governors Both,” returned the man, in what he meant 
to be a wheedling tone, “ which on you might be Lawyer 
Lightwood ? ” 

“ I am.” 

“ Lawyer Lightwood,” ducking at him with a servile air, 
“ I am a man as gets my living, and as seeks to get my living, 
by the sweat of my brow. Not to risk being done out of 
the sweat of my brow, by any chances, I should wish 
afore going further to be swore in.” 

“ I am not a swearer in of people, man.” 

The visitor, clearly anything but reliant on this assurance, 
doggedly muttered “ Alfred David.” 

“ Is that your name? ” asked Lightwood. 

“ My name?” returned the man. “ No; I want to take 
a Alfred David.” 

(Which Eugene, smoking and contemplating him, inter- 
preted as meaning Affidavit.) 

“ I tell you, my good fellow,” said Lightwood, with his 
indolent laugh, “ that I have nothing to do with swearing.” 

“ He can svrear at you,” Eugene explained; “ and so can 1. 
But we can’t do more for you.” 

Much discomfited by this information, the visitor turned 
the drowned dog or cat, pup})y or kitten, about and about, 
and looked from one of the Governors Both to the other of 
the Governors Both, while he deeply considered within him- 
self. At length he decided: 

“ Then I must be took down.” 

“ Where ? ” asked Lightwood. 

“ Here,” said the man. “ In pen and ink.” 

“ First, let us know what your business is about.” 

“ It’s about,” said the man, taking a step forward, dropping 
his hoarse voice, and shading it with his hand, “ it’s about 
from five to ten thousand pound reward. That’s what it’s 
about. It’s about Murder. That’s what it’s about.” 

“ Come nearer the table. Sit down. Will you have a 
glass of wine ? ” 


THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN's BROW 167 

“Yes, I will,” said the man; “and I don’t deceive you, 
Governors.” 

It was given him. Making a stiff arm to the elbow, he 
poured the wine into his mouth, tilted it into his right cheek, 
as saying, “ What do you think of it? ” tilted it into his left 
cheek, as saying, “ What do you think of it? ” jerked it into 
his stomach, as saying, “What do you think of it?” To 
conclude, smacked his lips, as if all three replied, “We think 
well of it.” 

“ Will you have another? ” 

“ Yes, I will,” he repeated, “ and I don’t deceive you. 
Governors.” And also repeated the other proceedings. 

“ Now,” began Lightwood, “ what’s your name? ” 

“ Why, there you’re rather fast. Lawyer Lightwood,” he 
replied, in a remonstrant manner. “ Don’t you see. Lawyer 
Lightwood? There you’re a little bit fast. I’m going to. 
earn from five to ten thousand pound by the sweat of my 
brow; and as a poor man doing justice to the sweat of my 
brow, is it likely I can afford to part with so much as my 
name without its being took down ? ” 

Deferring to the man’s sense of the binding powers of pen 
and ink and paper, Lightwood nodded acceptance of Eugene’s 
nodded proposal to take those spells in hand. Eugene, 
bringing them to the table, sat down as clerk or notary. 

“ Now,” said Lightwood, “ what’s your name? ” 

But further precaution was still due to the sweat of this 
honest fellow’s brow. 

“ I should wish. Lawyer Lightwood,” he stipulated, “ to 
have that T’other Governor as my witness that what I said 
I said. Consequent, will the T’other Governor be so good 
as chuck me his name and where he lives ? ” 

Eugene, cigar in mouth and pen in hand, tossed him his 
card. After spelling it out slowly, the man made it into a 
little roll, and tied it up in an end of his neckerchief still 
more slowly. 

“ Now,” said Lightwood, for the third time, “ if you have 
quite completed your various preparations, my friend, and 
have fully ascertained that your spirits are cool and not in 
any way hurried, what’s your name ? ” 

“ Roger Riderhood ” 


168 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Dwelling-place? ” 

“ Lime’us Hole.” 

“ Calling or occupation ? ” 

Not quite so glib with this answer as with the previous 
two, Mr. Riderhood gave in the definition, ‘‘ Waterside 
character.” 

“ Anything against you ? ” Eugene quietly put in as he 
wrote. 

Rather baulked, Mr. Riderhood evasively remarked, with 
an innocent air, that he believed the T’other Governor had 
asked him summat ” 

Ever in trouble?” said Eugene. 

“ Once.” (iMight happen to any man, Mr. Riderhood 
added incidentally.) 

“ On suspicion of ? ” 

“ Of seaman’s pocket,” said Mr. Riderhood. “ Whereby I 
was in reality the man’s best friend, and tried to take care 
of him.” 

“ With the sweat of your brow? ” asked Eugene. 

“ Till it poured down like rain,” said Roger Riderhood. 

Eugene leaned back in his chair and smoked, with his eyes 
negligently turned on the informer, and his pen ready to 
reduce him to more writing. Lightwood also smoked, with 
his eyes negligently turned on the informer. 

“ Now let me be took down again,” said Riderhood, when 
he had turned the drowned cap over and under, and had 
brushed it the wrong way (if it had a right way) with his 
sleeve. “ I give information that the man that done the 
Harmon Murder is Gaffer Hexam, the man that found the 
body. The hand of Jesse Hexam, commonly called Gaffer 
on the river and along-shore, is the hand that done that 
deed. His hand and no other.” 

The two friends glanced at one another with more serious 
faces than they had shown yet. 

“ Tell us on what grounds you make this accusation,” said 
Mortimer Lightwood. 

On the grounds,” answered Riderhood, wiping his face 
with his sleeve, “ that I was Gaffer’s pardner, and suspected 
of him many a long day and many a dark night. On the 
grounds that I knowed his ways. On the grounds that 


THE S'WEAT OF AN HONEST MAN’s BROW 169 


I broke the pardnership because I see the danger; which 
I warn you his daughter may tell you another story about 
that, for any think I can say, but you know what it’ll be 
worth, for she’d tell you lies, the world round and the heavens 
broad, to save her father. On the grounds that it’s well 
understood along the causeways and the stairs that he done 
it. On the grounds that he’s fell off from, because he done 
it.* On the grounds that I will swear he done it. On the 
grounds that you may take me where you will, and get me 
sworn to it. 1 don’t want to back out of the consequences. 
I have made up my mind. Take me anywheres.” 

“ All this is nothing,” said Lightwood. 

“Nothing?” repeated Riderhood, indignantly and 
amazedly. 

“ Merely nothing. It goes to no more than that you 
suspect this man of the crime. You may do so with some 
reason, or you may do so with no reason, but he cannot be 
convicted on your suspicion.” 

“ Haven’t I said — I appeal to the T’other Governor as my 
witness — haven’t I said from the first minute that I opened 
my mouth in this here world-without-end-everlasting chair ” 
(he evidently used that form of words as next in force to an 
affidavit), “ that I was willing to swear that he done it? 
Haven’t I said. Take me and get me sworn to it? Don’t I 
say so now ? You won’t deny it, Lawyer Lightwood ? ” 

“ Surely not; but you only offer to swear to your sus- 
picion, and I tell you it is not enough to swear to your sus- 
picion.” 

“ Not enough, ain’t it. Lawyer Lightwood? ” he cautiously 
demanded. 

“ Positively not.” 

“ And did I say it was enough ? Now, I appeal to the 
T’other Governor. Now, fair! Did I say so? ” 

“ He certainly has not said that he had no more to tell,’* 
Eugene observed in a low voice without looking at him, 
“ whatever he seemed to imply.” 

“ Hah!” cried the informer, triumphantly perceiving that 
the remark was generally in his favour, though apparently 
not closely understanding it. “ Fort’nate for me I had a 
witness! ” 


170 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Go on, then,” said Lightwood. “ Say out what you have 
to say. No afterthought.” 

“ Let me be took down then! ” cried the informer, eagerly 
and anxiously. “ Let me be took down, for by George and 
the Draggin I’m a-coming to it now! Don’t do nothing to 
keep back from a honest man the fruits of the sweat of his 
brow! I give information, then, that he told me that he 
done it. Is that enough ? ” 

“ Take care what you say, my friend,” returned Mortimer. 

“ Lawyer Lightwood, take care, you, what I say; for I 
judge you’ll be answerable for follering it up! ” Then, slowly 
and emphatically beating it all out with his open right hand 
on the palm of his left; “ I, Roger Riderhood, Lime’us Hole, 
Waterside character, tell you. Lawyer Lightwood, that the 
man Jesse Hexam, commonly called upon the river and 
along-shore GafPer, told me that he done the deed. What’s 
more, he told me with his own lips that he done the deed 
What’s more, he said that he done the deed. And I’ll swear 
it!” 

Where did he tell you so?” 

Outside,” replied Riderhood, always beating it out, with 
his head determinedly set askew, and his eyes watchfully 
dividing their attention between his two auditors, “ outside 
the door of the Six Jolly Fellowships, towards a quarter arter 
twelve o’clock at midnight — but I will not in my conscience 
undertake to swear to so fine a matter as five minutes — on 
the night when he picked up the body. The Six Jolly Fellow- 
ships stands on the spot still. The Six Jolly Fellowships won’t 
run away. If it turns out that he warn’t at the Six Jolly 
Fellowships that night at midnight, I’m a liar.” 

“What did he say?” 

“ I’ll tell you (take me down. T’other Governor, I ask no 
better). He come out first; I come out last. I might be 
a minute arter him; I might be half a minute, I might be a 
quarter of a minute; I cannot swear to that, and therefore I 
won’t. That’s knowing the obligations of a Alfred David, 
ain’t it?” 

“ Go on.” 

“ I found him a-waiting to speak to me. He says to me, 

‘ Rogue Riderhood ’ — for that’s the name I’m mostly called 


THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN’s BROW 171 

by — not for any meaning in it, for meaning it has none, but 
because of its being similar to Roger.’" 

“ Never mind that.” 

“ "Sense me, Lawyer Lightwood, it’s a part of the truth, 
and as such I do mind it, and I must mind it and I will 
mind it. ‘ Rogue Riderhood," he says, ‘ words passed betwixt 
us on the river to-night." Which they had; ask his daughter! 
‘ I threatened you," he says, ‘ to chop you over the fingers 
with my boat’s stretcher, or take a aim at your brains with 
my boat-hook. I did so on accounts of your looking too hard 
at what I had in tow, as if you was suspicious, and on accounts 
of your holding on to the gunwale of my boat." I says to him, 
‘ Gaffer, I know it." He says to me, ‘ Rogue Riderhood, 
you are a man in a dozen " — I think he said in a score, but 
of that I am not positive, ^so take the lowest figure, for precious 
be the obligations of a Alfred David. ‘ And," he says, ‘ when 
your fellow-men is up, be it their lives or be it their watches, 
sharp is ever the word with you. Had you suspicions?" I 
says, ‘ Gaffer, I had ; and what’s more, I have." He falls 
a-shaking, and he says, ‘ Of what? " I says, ‘ Of foul play." 
He falls a-shaking worse, and he says, ‘ There was foul play 
then. I done it for his money. Don’t betray me!" Those 
were the words as ever he used.” 

There was a silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes 
in the grate. An opportunity which the informer improved 
by smearing himself all over the head and neck and face 
with his drowned cap, and not at all improving his own 
appearance. 

“ What more? ” asked Lightwood. 

Of him, d’ye mean. Lawyer Lightwood ? ” 

“ Of anything to the purpose.” 

“ Now I’m blest if I understand you, Governors Both,” 
said the informer, in a creeping manner: propitiating 
both, though only one had spoken. “ What? Ain’t that 
enough ? ” 

“ Did you ask him how he did it, where he did it, when 
he did it ? ” 

“ Far be it from me. Lawyer Lightwood ! I was so troubled 
in my mind, that I wouldn’t have knowed more, no, not for 
the sum as I expect to earn from you by the sweat of my brow, 


172 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


twice told! I had put an end to the pardnership. I had cut 
the connection. I couldn’t undo what was done; and when 
he begs and prays, ‘ Old pardner, on my knees, don’t split 
upon me 1 ’ I only makes answer, ‘ Never speak another word 
to Roger Riderhood, nor look him in the face 1 ’ and I shuns 
that man.” 

Having given these words a swing to make them mount 
the higher and go the further. Rogue Riderhood poured 
himself out another glass of wine unbidden, and seemed to 
chew it, as, with the half-emptied glass in his hand, he stared 
at the candles. 

Mortimer glanced at Eugene, but Eugene sat glowering 
at his paper, and would give him no responsive glance. 
Mortimer again turned to the informer, to whom he said: 

“You have been troubled in your mind a long time, man ? ” 

Giving his wine a final chew, and swallowing it, the in- 
former answered in a single word: 

“ Hagesl ” 

“When all that stir was made, when the Government 
reward was offered, when the police were on the alert, when 
the whole country rang with the crime!” said Mortimer, 
impatiently. 

“ Hah! ” Mr. Riderhood very slowly and hoarsely chimed 
in, with several retrospective nods of his head. “ Warn’ t I 
troubled in my mind then ! ” 

“ When conjecture ran wild, when the most extravagant 
suspicions were afloat, when half-a-dozen innocent people 
might have been laid by the heels any hour in the day!” 
said Mortimer, almost warming. 

“ Hah! ” Mr. Riderhood chimed in, as before. “ Warn’t I 
troubled in my mind through it all! ” 

“ But he hadn’t,” said Eugene, drawing a lady’s head upon 
his writing-paper, and touching it at intervals, “ the oppor- 
tunity then of earning so much money, you see.” 

“ The T’other Governor hits the nail. Lawyer Lightwood ! 
It was that as turned me. I had many times and again 
struggled to relieve myself of the trouble on my mind, but 
I couldn’t get it off. I had once very nigh got it off to Miss 
Abbey Potterson which keeps the Six Jolly Fellowships — 
there is the ’ouse, it won’t run away, — there lives the lady, 


THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN'S BROW 173 


she ain’t likely to be struck dead afore you get there — ask 
her! — but I couldn’t do it. At last, out comes the new bill 
with your own lawful name, Lawyer Lightwood, printed to 
it, and then I asks the question of my own intellects. Am 
I to have this trouble on my mind for ever ? Am I never to 
throw it off ? Am I always to think more of Gaffer than of 
my own self ? If he’s got a daughter, ain’t I got a daughter ? ” 

“And echo answered ?” Eugene suggested. 

“ ‘ You have,’ ” said Mr. Riderhood, in a firm tone. 

“Incidentally mentioning, at the same time, her age?” 
inquired Eugene. 

“ Yes, Governor. Two-and-twenty last October. And 
then I put it to myself, ‘ Regarding the money. It is a pot 
of money.’ For it is a pot,” said Mr. Riderhood, with can- 
dour, “ and why deny it? ” 

“Hear!” from Eugene as he touched his drawing. 

“ ‘ It is a pot of money; but is it a sin for a labouring 
man that moistens every crust of bread he earns with his 
tears — or if not with them, with the colds he catches in his 
head — is it a sin for that man to earn it ? Say there is 
anything again earning it.’ This I put to myself strong, as 
in duty bound ; ‘ how can it be said without blaming Lawyer 
Lightwood for offering it to be earned ? ’ And was it for me 
to blame Lawyer Lightwood? No.” 

“ No,” said Eugene. 

“ Certainly not. Governor,” Mr. Riderhood acquiesced. 
“ So I made up my mind to get my trouble off my mind, and 
to earn by the sweat of my brow what was held out to me. 
And what’s more,” he added, suddenly turning bloodthirsty, 
“ I mean to have it! And now I tell you, once and away, 
I.(awyer Lightwood, that Jesse Hexam, commonly called 
Gaffer, his hand and no other, done the deed, on his own 
confession to me. And I give him up to you, and I want 
him took. This night!” 

After another silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes 
in the grate, which attracted the informer’s attention as if it 
were the chinking of money, ^lortimer Lightwood leaned 
over his friend, and said in a whisper: 

“ I suppose I must go with this fellow to our imperturbable 
friend at the police-station.” 


174 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I suppose,” said Eugene, “ there is no help for it.” 

“ Do you believe him?” 

“ I believe him to be a thorough rascal. But he may tell 
the truth, for his own purpose, and for this occasion only.” 

It doesn’t look like it.” 

“ He doesn’t,” said Eugene. But neither is his late 
partner, whom he denounces, a prepossessing person. The 
firm are cut-throat Shepherds both, in appearance. I should 
like to ask him one thing.” 

The subject of this conference sat leering at the ashes, 
trying with all his might to overhear what was said, but 
feigning abstraction as the “ Governors Both ” glanced at 
him. 

‘^You mentioned (twice, I think) a daughter of this 
Hexam’s,” said Eugene, aloud. “ You don’t mean to imply 
that she had any guilty knowledge of the crime ? ” 

The honest man, after considering — perhaps considering 
how his answer might affect the fruits of the sweat of his 
brow — replied unreservedly, “No, I don’t.” 

“i^nd you implicate no other person?” 

“ It ain’t what I implicate, it’s what Gaffer implicated,” 
was the dogged and determined answer. “ I don’t pretend 
to know more than that his words to me was, ‘ I done it.’ 
Those was his words.” 

“ I must see this out, Mortimer,” whis})ered Eugene, rising. 
“ How shall we go? ” 

” Let us walk,” whispered Lightwood, “ and give this 
fellow time to think of it.” 

Having exchanged the question and answer, they prepared 
themselves for going out, and Mr. Riderhood rose. While 
extinguishing the candles, Lightwood, quite as a matter of 
course, took up the glass from which that honest gentleman 
had drunk, and coolly tossed it under the grate, where it fell 
shivering into fragments. 

Now, if you will take the lead,” said Lightwood, “ ]\Ir. 
Wray burn and I will follow. You know where to go, I 
suppose ? ” 

‘‘ I suppose I do. Lawyer Lightwood.” 

‘•Take the lead then.” 

The waterside character pulled his drowned cap over his 


THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN’s BROW 175 


ears with both hands, and making himself more round- 
shouldered than nature had made him, by the sullen and 
persistent slouch with which he went, went down the stairs, 
round by the Temple Church, across the Temple into White- 
friars, and so on by the waterside streets. 

“ Look at his hang-dog air,” said Lightwood, following. 

“ It strikes me rather as a hang-mart air,” returned Eugene. 
“ He has undeniable intentions that way.” 

They said little else as they followed. He went on before 
them as an ugly Fate might have done, and they kept him 
in view, and would have been glad enough to lose sight of 
him. But on he went before them, always at the same 
distance and the same rate. Aslant against the hard im- 
placable weather and the rough wind, he was no more to 
be driven back than hurried forward, but held on like an 
advancing Destiny. There came, when they were about mid- 
way on their journey, a heavy rush of hail, which in a few 
minutes pelted the streets clear, and whitened them. It 
made no difference to him. A man’s life being to be taken 
and the price of it got, the hailstones to arrest the purpose 
must lie larger and deeper than those. He crushed through 
them, leaving marks in the fast-melting slush that were mere 
shapeless holes; one might have fancied, following, that the 
very fashion of humanity had departed from his feet. 

The blast went by, and the moon contended with the fast- 
flying clouds, and the wild disorder reigning up there made 
the pitiful little tumults in the streets of no account. It was 
not that the wind swept all the brawlers into places of shelter, 
as it had swept the hail still lingering in heaps wherever 
there was refuge for it; but that it seemed as if the streets 
were absorbed by the sky, and the night were all in the air. 

“ If he has had time to think of it,” said Eugene, “ he has 
not had time to think better of it — or differently of it, if 
that’s better. There is no sign of drawing back in him; and 
as I recollect this place, we must be close upon the corner 
where we alighted that night.” 

In fact, a few abrupt turns brought them to the river-side, 
where they had slipped about among the stones, and where 
they now slipped more; the wind coming against them in 
slants and flaws, across the tide and the windings of the river, 


176 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


in a furious way. With that habit of getting under the 
lee of any shelter which waterside characters acquire, the 
waterside character at present in question led the way to the 
lee side of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters before he spoke. 

“ Look round here, Lawyer Lightwood, at them red cur- 
tains. It’s the Fellowships, the ’ouse as I told you wouldn’t 
run away. And has it run away ? ” 

Not showing himself much impressed by this remarkable 
confirmation of the informer’s evidence, Lightwood inquired 
what other business they had there? 

“ I wished you to see the Fellowships for yourself. Lawyer 
Lightwood, that you might judge whether I’m a liar; and 
now I’ll see Gaffer’s window for myself, that we may know 
whether he’s at home.” 

With that, he crept away. 

“ He’ll come back, I suppose? ” murmured Lightwood. 

“Ay! and go through with it,” murmured Eugene. 

He came back after a very short interval indeed. 

“ Gaffer’s out, and his boat’s out. His daughter’s at home, 
sitting a-looking at the fire. But there’s some supper getting 
ready, so Gaffer’s expected. I can find what move he’s upon, 
easy enough, presently.” 

Then he beckoned and led the way again, and they came 
to the police-station, still as clean and cool and steady as 
before, saving that the flame of its lamp — being but a lamp- 
flame, and only attached to the Force as an outsider — 
flickered in the wind. 

Also, within doors, Mr. Inspector was at his studies as of 
yore. He recognised the friends the instant they reappeared, 
but their reappearance had no effect on his composure. Not 
even the circumstance that Riderhood was their conductor 
moved him, otherwise than that as he took a dip of ink he 
seemed, by a settlement of his chin in his stock, to propound 
to that personage, without looking at him, the question, 
“ What have you been up to, last? ” 

Mortimer Lightwood asked him, would he be so good as 
look at those notes? Handing him Eugene’s. 

Having read the first few lines, Mr. Inspector mounted to 
that (for him) extraordinary pitch of emotion that he said, 
“ Does either of you two gentlemen happen to have a pinch 


THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN's BROW 177 

of snuff about him?” Finding that neither had, he did 
quite as well without it, and read on. 

“ Have you heard these read? ” he then demanded of the 
honest man. 

“ No,” said Riderhood. 

‘‘ Then you had better hear them.” And so read them 
aloud, in an official manner. 

“ Are these notes correct, now, as to the information you 
bring here and the evidence you mean to give ? ” he asked, 
when he had finished reading. 

“ They are. They are as correct,” returned Mr. Rider- 
hood, “ as I am. I can’t say more than that for ’em.” 

“ I’ll take this man myself, sir,” said Mr. Inspector to 
Lightwood. Then to Riderhood, “ Is he at home? Where 
is he? What’s he doing? You have made it your business 
to know all about him, no doubt.” 

Riderhood said what he did know, and promised to find 
out in a few minutes what he didn’t know. 

“ Stop,” said Mr. Inspector; “ not till I tell you. We 
mustn’t look like business. Would you two gentlemen ob- 
ject to making a pretence of taking a glass of something in 
my company at the Fellowships? Well-conducted house, 
and highly respectable landlady.” 

They replied that they would be happy to substitute a 
reality for the pretence, which, in the main, appeared to be 
as one with Mr. Inspector’s meaning. 

“ Very good,” said he, taking his hat from its peg, and 
putting a pair of handcuffs in his pocket as if they were his 
gloves. “ Reserve!” Reserve saluted. “You know where 
to find me?” Reserve again saluted. “Riderhood, when 
you have found out concerning his coming home, come round 
to the window of Cosy, tap twice at it, and wait for me. 
Now, gentlemen.” 

As the three went out together, and Riderhood slouched 
off from under the trembling lamp his separate way. Light- 
wood asked the officer what he thought of this ? 

Mr. Inspector replied, with due generality and reticence, 
that it was always more likely that a man had done a bad 
thing than that he hadn’t. That he himself had several 
•times “ reckoned up ” Gaffer, but had never been able to 


178 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


bring him to a satisfactory criminal total. That if this story 
was true, it was only in part true. That the two men, very 
shy characters, would have been jointly and pretty equally 
in it; ” but that this man had spotted ” the other, to save 
himself and get the money. 

“ And I think,” added Mr. Inspector, in conclusion, “ that 
if all goes well with him, he’s in a tolerable way of getting 
it. But as this is the Fellowships, gentlemen, where the 
lights are, I recommend dropping the subject. You can’t do 
better than be interested in some lime works anywhere down 
about Northfleet, and doubtful whether some of your lime 
don’t get into bad company, as it comes up in barges.” 

“ You hear, Eugene? ” said Lightwood, over his shoulder. 
“You are deeply interested in lime.” 

“ Without lime,” returned that unmoved barrister-at-law, 
“ my existence would be unilluminated by a ray of hope.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY 

The two lime merchants, with their escort, entered the 
dominions of Miss Abbey Potterson, to whom their escort 
(presenting them and their pretended business over the half- 
door of the bar, in a confidential way) preferred his figurative 
request that ‘‘ a mouthful of fire ” might be lighted in Cosy. 
Always well disposed to assist the constituted authorities. 
Miss Abbey bade Bob Gliddery attend the gentlemen to 
that retreat, and promptly enliven it with fire and gaslight. 
Of this commission the bare-armed Bob, leading the way 
with a flaming wisp of paper, so speedily acquitted himself, 
that Cosy seemed to leap out of a dark sleep and embrace 
them warmly, the moment they passed the lintels of its 
hospitable door. 

“ They bum sherry very well here,” said Mr. Inspector, as 
a piece of local intelligence. “ Perhaps you gentlemen might 
like a bottle ? ” 

The answer being By all means. Bob Gliddery received his 
instructions from Mr. Inspector, and departed in a becoming 
state of alacrity engendered by reverence for the majesty of 
the law. 

It’s a certain fact,” said Mr. Inspector, “ that this man 
we have received our information from,” indicating Rider- 
hood with his thumb over his shoulder, ‘‘ has for some time 
past given the other man a bad name arising out of your 
lime barges, and that the other man has been avoided in 
consequence. I don’t say what it means or proves, but it’s 
a certain fact. I had it first from one of the opposite sex of 
my acquaintance,” vaguely indicating Miss Abbey with his 
thumb over his shoulder, “ down away at a distance, over 
yonder.” 


180 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Then probably Mr. Inspector was not quite un| repared 
for their visit that evening ? Lightwood hinted. 

“ Well, you see,” said Mr. Inspector, “ it was a question of 
making a move. It’s of no use moving if you don’t know 
what your move is. You had better by far keep still. In 
the matter of this lime, I certainly had an idea that it might 
lie betwixt the two men; I always had that idea. Still I 
was forced to wait for a start, and I wasn’t so lucky as to get 
a start. This man that we have received our information 
from has got a start, and if he don’t meet with a check he 
may make the running and come in first. There may 
turn out to be something considerable for him that comes in 
second, and I don’t mention who may or who may not try 
for that place. There’s duty to do, and I shall do it, under 
any circumstances, to the best of my judgment and ability.” 

“ Speaking as a shipper of lime ” began Eugene. 

“ Which no man has a better right to do than yourself, 
you know,” said Mr. Inspector. 

“ I hope not,” said Eugene; “ my father having been a 
shipper of lime before me, and my grandfather before him — 
in fact we have been a family immersed to the crowns of our 
heads in lime during several generations — I beg to observe 
that if this missing lime could be got hold of without any 
young female relative of any distinguished gentleman en- 
gaged in the lime trade (which I cherish next to my life) 
being present, I think it might be a more agreeable proceed- 
ing to the assisting bystanders, that is to say, lime-burners.” 

“ I also,” said Lightwood, pushing his friend aside with 
a laugh, “ should much prefer that.” 

“ It shall be done, gentlemen, if it can be done conve- 
niently,” said Mr. Inspector, with coolness. “ There is no 
wish on my part to cause any distress in that quarter. Indeed, 
I am sorry for that quarter.” 

“ There was a boy in that quarter,” remarked Eugene. 
“ He is still there ? ” 

“ No,” said Mr. Inspector. “ He has quitted those works. 
He is otherwise disposed of.” 

“ Will she be left alone then ? ” asked Eugene. 

“ She will be left,” said Mr. Inspector, “ alone.” 

Bob’s reappearance with a steaming jug broke off the con- 


TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY 


181 


versation. But although the jug steamed forth a delicious 
j erfume, its contents had not received that last happy touch 
which the surpassing finish of the Six Jolly Fellowship- 
Porters imparted on such momentous occasions. Boh carried 
in his left hand one of those iron models of sugar-loaf hats 
before mentioned, into which he emptied the jug, and the 
pointed end of which he thrust deep down into the fire, 
so leaving it for a few moments while he disappeared and 
reappeared with three bright drinking-glasses. Placing these 
on the table and bending over the fire, meritoriously sensible 
of the trying nature of his duty, he watched the wreaths of 
steam, until at the special instant of projection he caught up 
the iron vessel and gave it one delicate twirl, causing it to 
send forth one gentle hiss. Then he restored the contents 
to the jug; held over the steam of the jug each of the three 
bright glasses in succession; finally filled them all, and 
with a clear conscience awaited the applause of his fellow- 
creatures. 

It was bestowed (Mr. Inspector having proposed as an 
appropriate sentiment The lime trade! ”), and Bob with- 
drew to report the commendations of the guests to Miss 
Abbey in the bar. It may be here in confidence admitted 
that, the room being close shut in his absence, there had not 
appeared to be the slightest reason for the elaborate main- 
tenance of this same lime fiction. Only it had been regarded 
by Mr. Inspector as so uncommonly satisfactory, and so 
fraught with mysterious virtues, that neither of his clients had 
presumed to question it. 

Two taps were now heard on the outside of the window. 
Mr. Inspector, hastily fortifying himself with another glass, 
strolled out with a noiseless foot and an unoccupied coun- 
tenance. As one might go to survey the weather and the 
general aspect of the heavenly bodies. 

“ This is becoming grim, Mortimer,” said Eugene in a low 
voice. ‘‘ I don’t like this.” 

“ Nor I,” said Lightwood. “ Shall we go? 

“ Being here, let us stay. You ought to see it out, and 
I won’t leave you. Besides, that lonely girl with the dark 
hair runs in my head. It was little more than a glimpse 
we had of her that last time, and yet I almost see her waiting 


182 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


by the fire to-night. Do you feel like a dark combination of 
traitor and pickpocket when you think of that girl? ” 

“ Rather,” returned Lightwood. Do you?” 

“ Very much so.” 

Their escort strolled back again, and reported. Divested 
of its various lime-lights and shadows, his report went to the 
effect that Gaffer was away in his boat, supposed to be on 
his old look-out; that he had been expected last high-water; 
that having missed it for some reason or other, he was not, 
according to his usual habits at night, to be counted on 
before next high-water, or it might be an hour or so later; 
that his daughter, surveyed through the window, would 
seem to be so expecting him, for the supper was not cooking, 
but set out ready to be cooked ; that it would be high-water 
at about one, and that it was now barely ten; that there 
was nothing to be done but watch and wait; that the informer 
was keeping watch at the instant of that present reporting, 
but that two heads were better than one (especially when the 
second was Mr. Inspector’s); and that the reporter meant 
to share the watch. And forasmuch as crouching under the 
lee of a hauled-up boat on a night when it blew cold and 
strong, and when the weather was varied with blasts of hail 
at times, might be wearisome to amateurs, the reporter 
closed with the recommendation that the two gentlemen 
should remain, for awhile at any rate, in their present quarters, 
which were weather-tight and warm. 

They were not inclined to dispute this recommendation, 
but they wanted to know where they could join the watchers 
when so disposed. Rather than trust to a verbal description 
of the place, which might mislead, Eugene (with a less 
weighty sense of personal trouble on him than he usually 
had) would go out with Mr. Inspector, note the spot, and 
come back. 

On the shelving bank of the river, among the slimy stones 
of a causeway — not the special causeway of the Six Jolly 
Fellowships, which had a landing-place of its own, but 
another, a little removed, and very near to the old windmill 
which was the denounced man’s dwelling-place — were a few 
boats; some, moored and already beginning to float; others, 
hauled up above the reach of the tide. Under one of these 


TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY 


183 


latter Eugene’s companion disappeared. And when Eugene 
had observed its position with reference to the other boats, 
and had made sure that he could not miss it, he turned his 
eyes upon the building where, as he had been told, the lonely 
girl with the dark hair sat by the fire. 

He could see the light of the fire shining through the 
window. Perhaps it drew him on to look in. Perhaps he 
had come out with the express intention. That part of 
the bank having rank grass growing on it, there was no 
difficulty in getting close, without any noise of footsteps: 
it was but to scramble up a ragged face of pretty hard 
mud some three or four feet high and come upon the grass 
and to the window. He came to the window by that 
means. 

She had no other light than the light of the fire. The 
unkindled lamp stood on the table. She sat on the ground, 
looking at the brazier, with her face leaning on her hand. 
There was a kind of film or flicker on her face, which at first 
he took to be the fitful firelight; but, on a second look, he 
saw that she was weeping. A sad and solitary spectacle, as 
shown him by the rising and the falling of the fire. 

It was a little window of but four pieces of glass, and was 
not curtained; he chose it because the larger window near 
it was. It showed him the room, and the bills upon the wall 
respecting the drowned people starting out and receding by 
turns. But he glanced slightly at them, though he looked 
long and steadily at her. A deep rich piece of colour, with 
the brown flush of her cheek and the shining lustre of her 
hair, though sad and solitary, weeping by the rising and the 
falling of the fire. 

She started up. He had been so very still, that he felt 
sure it was not he who had disturbed her, so merely withdrew 
from the window and stood near it in the shadow of the wall. 
She opened the door, and said in an alarmed tone, “ Father, 
was that you calling me?” And again, “Father!” And 
once again, after listening, “ Father! I thought I heard you 
call me twice before.” 

No response. As she reentered at the door, he dropped 
over the bank and made his way back, among the ooze and 
near the hiding-place, to Mortimer Lightwood: to whom he 


184 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


told what he had seen of the girl, and how this was be- 
coming very grim indeed. 

If the real man feels as guilty as I do,’’ said Eugene, “ he 
is remarkably uncomfortable.” 

“ Influence of secrecy,” suggested Lightwood. 

“ I am not at all obliged to it for making me Guy Fawkes 
in the vault and a Sneak in the area both at once,” said 
Eugene. “ Give me some more of that stuff.” 

Lightwood helped him to some more of that stuff, but it 
had been cooling, and didn’t answer now. 

“ Pooh,” said Eugene, spitting it out among the ashes. 
“ Tastes like the wash of the river.” 

“ Are you so familiar with the flavour of the wash of the 
river? ” 

“ I seem to be to-night. I feel as if I had been half drowned, 
and swallowing a gallon of it.” 

“ Influence of locality,” suggested Lightwood. 

“You are mighty learned to-night, ^ou and your influ- 
ences,” returned Eugene. “ How long shall we stay here? ” 

“ How long do you think? ” 

“ If I could choose, I should say a minute,” replied Eugene, 
“ for the Jolly Fellowship-Porters are not the jolliest dogs I 
have known. But I suppose we are best here till they turn 
us out with the other suspicious characters, at midnight.” 

Thereupon he stirred the fire, and sat down on one side of 
it. It struck eleven, and he made believe to compose himself 
patiently. But gradually he took the fidgets in one leg, and 
then in the other leg, and then in one arm, and then in the 
other arm, and then in his chin, and then in his back, and 
then in his forehead, and then in his hair, and then in his 
nose ; and then he stretched himself recumbent on two chairs, 
and groaned; and then he started up. 

“ Invisible insects of diabolical activity swarm in this place. 
I am tickled and twitched all over. Mentally, I have now 
committed a burglary under the meanest circumstances, and 
the myrmidons of justice are at my heels.” 

“ I am quite as bad,” said Lightwood, sitting up facing 
him, with a tumbled head, after going through some wonder- 
ful evolutions, in which his head had been the lowest part of 
him. “ This restlessness began, with me, long ago. All the 









TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY 


185 


time you were out, I felt like Gulliver with the Lilliputians 
firing upon him.” 

“ It won’t do, Mortimer. We must get into the air; we 
must join our dear friend and brother, Riderhood. And let 
us tranquillise ourselves by making a compact. Next time 
(with a view to our peace of mind) we’ll commit the crime, 
instead of taking the criminal. You swear it? ” 

“ Certainly.” 

“Sworn! Let Tippins look to it. Pier life’s in danger.” 

Mortimer rang the bell to pay the score, and Bob appeared 
to transact that business with him: whom Eugene, in his 
careless extravagance, asked if he would like a situation in 
the lime trade ? 

“ Thankee, sir, no, sir,” said Bob. “ I’ve a good sitiwation 
here, sir.” 

“ If you change your mind at any time,” returned Eugene, 
“ come to me at my works, and you’ll always find an opening 
in the lime-kiln.” 

“ Thankee, sir,” said Bob. 

“ This is my partner,” said Eugene, “ who keeps the books 
and attends to the wages. A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s 
work is ever my partner’s motto.” 

“ And a very good ’un it is, gentlemen,” said Bob, receiving 
his fee, and drawing a bow out of his head with his right 
hand, very much as he would have drawn a pint of beer out 
of the beer-engine. 

“ Eugene,” Mortimer apostrophized him, laughing quite 
heartily when they were alone again, ‘''how can you be so 
ridiculous ? ” 

“ I am in a ridiculous humour,” quoth Eugene; “ I am 
a ridiculous fellow. Everything is ridiculous. Come along! ” 

It passed into Mortimer Lightwood’s mind that a change 
of some sort, best expressed perhaps as an intensification of 
all that was wildest and most negligent and reckless in his 
friend, had come upon him in the last half-hour or so. Thor- 
oughly used to him as he was, he found something new and 
strained in him that was for the moment perplexing. This 
passed into his mind, and passed out again; but he remem- 
bered it afterwards. 

“ There’s where she sits, you see,” said Eugene, when they 


186 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


were standing under the bank, roared and riven at by the 
wind. “ There’s the light of her fire.” 

“ I’ll take a peep through the window,” said Mortimer. 

“ No, don’t! ” Eugene caught him by the arm. “ Best not 
make a show of her. Come to our honest friend.” 

He led him to the post of watch, and they both dropped 
down and crept under the lee of the boat; a better shelter 
than it had seemed before, being directly contrasted with the 
blowing wind and the bare night. 

“ Mr. Inspector at home? ” whispered Eugene. 

Here I am, sir.” 

“ And our friend of the perspiring brow is at the far corner 
there? Good. Anything happened ? ” 

“ His daughter has been out, thinking she heard him 
calling, unless it was a sign to him to keep out of the way. 
It might have been.” 

It might have been Rule Britannia,” muttered Eugene, 
“ but it wasn’t. Mortimer! ” 

“ Here! ” (On the other side of Mr. Inspector.) 

“ Two burglaries now, and a forgery! ” 

With this indication of his depressed state of mind, Eugene 
fell silent. 

They were all silent for a long while. As it got to be 
flood-tide, and the water came nearer to them, noises on the 
river became more frequent, and they listened more. To the 
turning of steam-paddles, to the clinking of iron chain, to 
the creaking of blocks, to the measured working of oars, to 
the occasional violent barking of some passing dog on ship- 
board, who seemed to scent them lying in their hiding-place. 
The night was not so dark but that, besides the lights at 
bows and mastheads gliding to and fro, they could discern 
some shadowy bulk attached; and now and then a ghostly 
lighter with a large dark sail, like a warning arm, would 
start up very near them, pass on, and vanish. At this time 
of their watch, the water close to them would be often agi- 
tated by some impulsion given it from a distance. Often 
they believed* this beat and plash to be the boat they lay in 
wait for running in ashore; and again and again they would 
have started up, but for the immobility with which the 
informer, well used to the river, kept quiet in his place. 


TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY 


187 


The wind carried away the striking of the great multitude 
of city church clocks, for those lay to leeward of them; but 
there were bells to windward that told them of its being One 
— Two — Three. Without that aid they would have known 
how the night wore, by the falling of the tide, recorded in 
the appearance of an ever-wddening black wet strip of shore, 
and the emergence of the paved causeway from the river, foot 
by foot. 

As the time so passed, this slinking business became a more 
and more precarious one. It would seem as if the man had 
had some intimation of what was in hand against him, or had 
taken fright. His movements might have been planned to 
gain for him, in getting beyond their reach, twelve hours’ 
advantage. The honest man who had expended the sweat of 
his brow became uneasy, and began to complain wdth bitter- 
ness of the proneness of mankind to cheat him — him invested 
with the dignity of Labour! 

Their retreat was so chosen that while they could watch 
the river, they could watch the house. No one had passed 
in or out, since the daughter thought she heard the father 
calling. No one could pass in or out without being 
seen. 

“ But it will be light at five,” said Mr. Inspector, “ and 
then we shall be seen.” 

“ Look here,” said Riderhood, “ what do you say to this ? 
He may have been lurking in and out, and just holding his 
own betwixt two or three bridges, for hours back.” 

“ What do you make of that ? ” said Mr. Inspector. Stoical, 
but contradictory. 

“ He may be doing so at this {)resent time.” 

“ What do you make of that f ” said Mr. Inspector. 

“ My boat’s among them boats here at the cause’ay.” 

“And what do you make of your boat?” said Mr. In- 
spector. 

“ What if I put off in her and take a look round ? I know 
his ways, and the likely nooks he favours. I know wRere he’d 
be at such a time of the tide, and where he’d be at such 
another time. Ain’t I been his pardner? None of you need 
show. None of you need stir. I can shove her off without 
help; and as to me being seen, I’m about at all times.” 


188 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“You might have given a worse opinion,’ said Mr. In- 
spector, after brief consideration. “ Try it.” 

“ Stop a bit. Let’s work it out. If I want you, I’ll drop 
round under the Fellowships and tip you a whistle.’* 

“ If I might so far presume as to offer a suggestion to my 
honourable and gallant friend, whose knowledge of naval 
matters far be it from me to impeach,” Eugene struck in with 
great deliberation, “ it would be, that to tip a whistle is to 
advertise mystery and invite speculation. My honourable and 
gallant friend will, I trust, excuse me, as an independent 
member, for throwing out a remark which I feel to be due 
to this house and the country.” 

“ Was that the T’other Governor, or Lawyer Light wood ? ” 
asked Riderhood. For they spoke as they crouched or lay, 
without seeing one another’s faces. 

“ In reply to the question put by my honourable and 
gallant friend,” said Eugene, who was lying on his back with 
his hat on his face, as an attitude highly expressive of watch- 
fulness, “ I can have no hesitation in replying (it not being 
inconsistent with the public service) that those accents were 
the accents of the T’other Governor.” 

“ You’ve tolerable good eyes, ain’t you. Governor ? You’ve 
all tolerable good eyes, ain’t you?” demanded the in- 
former. 

All. 

“ Then if I row up under the Fellowships and lay there, 
no need to whistle. You’ll make out that there’s a speck of 
something or another there, and you’ll know it’s me, and 
you’ll come down that cause’ay to me. Understood all? ” 

Understood all. 

“ Off she goes then! ” 

In a moment, with the wind cutting keenly at him sideways, 
he was staggering down to his boat; in a few moments he 
was clear, and creeping up the river under their own shore. 

Eugene had raised himself on his elbow to look into the 
darkness after him. “ I wish the boat of my honourable and 
gallant friend,” he murmured, lying down again and speaking 
into his hat, “ may be endowed with philanthropy enough to 
turn bottom-upward and extinguish him I — INIortimer.” 

“ My honourable friend.” 


TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY 189 

“ Three burglaries, two forgeries, and a midnight assassina- 
tion.” 

Yet in spite of having those weights on his conscience, 
Eugene was somewhat enlivened by the late slight change in 
the circumstances of affairs. So were his two companions. 
Its being a change was everything. The suspense seemed to 
have taken a new lease, and to have begun afresh from a 
recent date. There was something additional to look for. 
They were all three more sharply on the alert, and less 
deadened by the miserable influences of the place and time. 

More than an hour had passed, and they were even dozing, 
when one of the three — each said it was he, and he had not 
dozed — made out Riderhood in his boat at the spot agreed 
on. They sprang up, came out from their shelter, and went 
down to him. When he saw them coming, he dropped 
alongside the causeway; so that they, standing on the cause- 
way, could speak with him in whispers, under the shadowy 
mass of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters fast asleep. 

“ Blest if I can make it out! ” said he, staring at them. 

“ Make what out ? Have you seen him ? ” 

No.” 

“What have you seen?” asked Lightwood. For he was 
staring at them in the strangest way. 

“ IVe seen his boat.” 

“ Not empty ? ” 

“ Yes, empty. And whaPs more, — adrift. And what’s 
more, — with one scull gone. And what’s more, — with 
t’other scull jammed in the thowels and broke short off. 
And what’s more, — the boat’s drove tight by the tide ’atwixt 
two tiers of barges. And' what’s more, — he’s in luck again, 
by George if he ain’t! ” 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN 

Cold on the shore, in the raw cold of that leaden crisis in 
the four-and-twenty hours when the vital force of all the 
noblest and prettiest things that live is at its lowest, the 
three watchers looked each at the blank faces of the other 
two, and all at the blank face of Riderhood in his boat. 

“ Gaffer’s boat, Gaffer in luck again, and yet no Gaffer! ” 
So spake Riderhood, staring disconsolate. 

As if with one accord, they all turned their eyes towards 
the light of the fire shining through the window. It was 
fainter and duller. Perhaps fire, like the higher animal and 
vegetable life it helps to sustain, has its greatest tendency 
towards death, when the night is dying and the day is not 
yet born. 

“ If it was me that had the law of this here job in hand,” 
growled Riderhood with a threatening shake of his head, 
“ blest if I wouldn’t lay hold of her, at any rate! ” 

“ Ay, but it is not you,” said Eugene. With something 
so suddenly fierce in him that the informer returned sub- 
missively: “ Well, well, well. T’other Governor, I didn’t say 
it was. A man may speak.” 

“ And vermin may be silent,” said Eugene. “ Hold your 
tongue, you water-rat! ” 

Astonished by his friend’s unusual heat, Lightwood stared 
too, and then said: “ What can have become of this man? ” 

“ Can’t imagine. Unless he dived overboard.” The in- 
former wiped his brow ruefully as he said it, sitting in his 
boat and always staring disconsolate. 

“ Did you make his boat fast? ” 


THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN 


191 


“ She’s fast enough till the tide runs back. I couldn’t 
make her faster than she is. Come aboard of mine, and see 
for your own selves.” 

There was a little backwardness in complying, for the 
freight looked too much for the boat; but on Riderhood’s 
protesting “ that he had had half-a-dozen, dead and alive, in 
her afore now, and she was nothing deep in the water nor 
down in the stern even then, to speak of,” they carefully took 
their places, and trimmed the crazy thing. While they were 
doing so, Riderhood still sat staring disconsolate. 

“All right. Give way! ” said Light wood. 

“Give way, by George!” repeated Riderhood, before 
shoving off. “ If he’s gone and made off anyhow, Lawyer 
Lightwood, it’s enough to make me give way in a different 
manner. But he always was a cheat, con-found him! He 
always was a infernal cheat, was Gaffer. Nothing straight- 
for’ard, nothing on the square. So mean, so underhaiuled. 
Never going through with a thing, nor carrying it out like a 
man!” 

“Hallo! Steady!” cried Eugene (he had recovered im- 
mediately on embarking), as they bumped heavily against 
a pile; and then in a lower voice reversed his late apostrophe 
by remarking (“ I wish the boat of my honourable and 
gallant friend may be endowed with philanthropy enough 
not to turn bottom-upward and extinguish us!) Steady, 
steady! Sit close, Mortimer. Here’s the hail again. See 
how it flies, ' like a troop of wild cats, at Mr. Riderhood’s 
eyes! ” 

Indeed he had the full benefit of it, and it so mauled him, 
though he bent his head low and tried to present nothing 
but the mangy cap to it, that he dropped under the lee of a 
tier of shipping, and they lay there until it was over. The 
squall had come up like a spiteful messenger before the 
morning; there followed in its wake a ragged tier of light 
which ripped the dark clouds until they showed a great gray 
hole of day. 

They were all shivering, and everything about them seemed 
to be shivering; the river itself, craft, rigging, sails, such 
early smoke as there yet was on the shore. Black with wet, 
and altered to the eye by white patches of hail and sleet, 


192 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


the huddled buildings looked lower than usual, as if they 
were cowering, and had shrunk with the cold. Very little 
life was to be seen on either bank, windows and doors were 
shut, and the staring black and white letters upon wharves 
and warehouses “ looked,” said Eugene to Mortimer, “ like 
inscriptions over the graves of dead businesses.” 

As they glided slowly on, keeping under the shore, and 
sneaking in and out among the shipping, by back-alleys of 
water, in a pilfering way that seemed to be their boatman’s 
normal manner of progression, all the objects among which 
they crept were so huge in contrast wdth their wretched boat 
as to threaten to crash it. Not a ship’s hull, with its rusty 
iron links of cable run out of hawse-holes long discoloured 
with the iron’s rusty tears, but seemed to be there with a fell 
intention. Not a figure-head but had the menacing look of 
bursting forward to run them down. Not a sluice-gate, or 
a painted scale upon a post or wall, showing the depth of 
water, but seemed to hint, like the dreadfully facetious Wolf 
in bed in Grandmamma’s cottage, “ That’s to drown yoii in, 
my dears!” Not a lumbering black barge, with its cracked 
and blistered side impending over them, but seemed to suck 
at the river with a thirst for sucking them under. And 
everything so vaunted the spoiling influences of water — dis- 
coloured copper, rotten wood, honey-combed stone, green 
dank deposit — that the after-consequences of being crushed, 
sucked under, and drawm down, looked as ugly to the imagi- 
nation as the main event. 

Some half-hour of this work, and Riderhood unshipped his 
sculls, stood holding on to a barge, and hand over hand long- 
wise along the barge’s side gradually worked his boat under 
her head into a secret little nook of scummy water. And 
driven into that nook, and wedged as he had described, was 
Gaffer’s boat; that boat with the stain still in it, bearing 
some resemblance to a muffled human form. 

“ Now tell me I’m a liar! ” said the honest man. 

(“ With a morbid expectation,” murmured Eugene to 
Lightwood, “ that somebody is always going to tell him the 
truth.”) 

“ This is Hexam’s boat,” said Mr. Inspector. “ I know 
her well.” 


THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN 193 

“ Look at the broken scull. Look at the t’other scull 
gone. Now tell me I am a liar! ” said the honest man. 

Mr. Inspector stepped into the boat. Eugene and Mortimer 
looked on. 

“And see now!” added Riderhood, creeping aft, and 
showing a stretched rope made fast there and towing over- 
board. “ Didn’t 1 tell you he was in luck again ? ” 

“ Haul in,” said Mr. Inspector. 

“ Easy to say haul in,” answered Riderhood. “ Not so 
easy done. His luck’s got fouled under the keels of the 
barges. I tried to haul in last time, but I couldn’t. See 
how taut the line is! ” 

“ I must have it up,” said Mr. Inspector. “ I am going to 
take this boat ashore, and his luck along with it. Try easy 
now.” 

He tried easy now; but the luck resisted; wouldn’t come. 

“ I mean to have it, and the boat too,” said Mr. Inspector, 
playing the line. 

But still the luck resisted; wouldn’t come. 

“ Take care,” said Riderhood. “ You’ll disfigure. Or pull 
asunder perhaps.” 

“ I am not going to do either, not even to your Grand- 
mother,” said Mr. Inspector; “ but I mean to have it. 
Come! ” he added, at once persuasively and with authority 
to the hidden object in the water, as he played the line again ; 
“ it’s no good this sort of game, you know. You must come 
up. I mean to have you.” 

There was so much virtue in this distinctly and decidedly 
meaning to have it, that it yielded a little, even while the 
line was played. 

“ I told you so,” quoth Mr. Inspector, pulling off his 
outer coat, and leaning well over the stem with a will, 
“Come!” 

It was an awful sort of fishing, but it no more disconcerted 
Mr. Inspector than if he had been fishing in a punt on a 
summer evening by some soothing weir high up the peaceful 
river. After certain minutes, and a few directions to the rest 
to “ ease her a little for’ard,” and “now ease her a trifle aft,” 
and the like, he said composedly, “ All clear! ” and the line 
and the boat came free together. 


194 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Accepting Lightwood’s proffered hand to help him up, he 
then put on his coat, and said to Riderhood, “ Hand me 
over these spare sculls of yours, and I’ll pull this in to the 
nearest stairs. Go ahead you, and keep out in pretty open 
water, that I mayn’t get fouled again.” 

His directions were obeyed, and they pulled ashore directly; 
two in one boat, two in the other. 

“ Now,” said Mr. Inspector again to Riderhood, when they 
were all on the slushy stones; “ you have had more practice 
in this than I have had, and ought to be a better workman 
at it. Undo the tow-rope, and we’ll help you haul in.” 

Riderhood got into the boat accordingly. It appeared as 
if he had scarcely had a moment’s time to touch the rope or 
look over the stern, when he came scrambling back, as pale 
as the morning, and gasped out: 

“ By the Lord, he’s done me! ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” they all demanded. 

He pointed behind him at the boat, and gasped to that 
degree that he dropped upon the stones to get his breath. 

“ Gaffer’s done me. It’s Gaffer! ” 

They ran to the rope, leaving him gasping there. Soon 
the form of the bird of prey, dead some hours, lay stretched 
upon the shore, with a new blast storming at it and clotting 
the wet hair with hailstones. 

Father, was that you calling me? Father! I thought I 
heard you call me twice before! Words never to be answered, 
those, upon the earth side of the grave. The wind sweeps 
jeeringly over Father, whips him with the frayed ends of his 
dress and his jagged hair, tries to turn him where he lies 
stark on his back, and force his face towards the rising sun, 
that he may be shamed the more. A lull, and the wind is 
secret and prying with him; lifts and lets fall a rag; hides 
palpitating under another rag; runs nimbly through his hair 
and beard. Then, in a rush, it cruelly taunts him. Father, 
was that you calling me ? Was it you, the voiceless and the 
dead ? Was it you, thus buffeted as you lie here in a heap ? 
Was it you, thus baptized unto Death, with these flying 
impurities now flung upon your face? Why not speak. 
Father? Soaking into this filthy ground as you lie here, is 
your own shape. Did you never see such a shape soaked into 





THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN 195 

your boat? Speak, Father. Speak to us, the winds, the only 
listeners left you! 

“ Now see,” said Mr. Inspector, after mature deliberation: 
kneeling on one knee beside the body, when they had stood 
looking down on the drowned man, as he had many a time 
looked down on many another man : “ the way of it was this. 
Of course you gentlemen hardly failed to observe that he was 
towing by the neck and arms.” 

They had helped to release the rope, and of course not. 

And you will have observed before, and you will observe 
now, that this knot, which was drawn chock-tight round his 
neck by the strain of his own arms, is a slip-knot: ” holding 
it up for demonstration. 

Plain enough. 

“ Likewise you will have observed how he had run the 
other end of this rope to his boat.” 

It had the curves and indentations in it still, where it had 
been twined and bound. 

** Now see,” said Mr. Inspector, see how it works round 
upon him. It’s a wild tempestuous evening when this man 
that was,” stooping to wipe some hailstones out of his hair 
with an end of his own drowned jacket, “ — there! Now he’s 
more like himself, though he’s badly bruised, — when this 
man that was, rows out upon the river on his usual lay. He 
carries with him this coil of rope. He always carries with 
him this coil of rope. It’s as well known to me as he was 
himself. Sometimes it lay in the bottom of his boat. Some- 
times he hung it loose round his neck. He was a light dresser, 
was this man; — you see?” lifting the loose neckerchief 
over his breast, and taking the opportunity of wiping the 
dead lips with it — “ and when it was wet, or freezing, or 
blew cold, he would hang this coil of line round his neck. 
Last evening he does this. Worse for him! He dodges 
about in his boat, does this man, till he gets chilled His 
hands,” taking up one of them, which dropped like a leaden 
weight, “ get numbed. He sees some object, that’s in his 
way of business, floating. He makes ready to secure that 
object. He unwinds the end of his coil that he wants to 
take some turns on in his boat, and he takes turns enough 
on it to secure that it shan’t run out. Fie makes it too secure, 


196 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


as it happens. He is a little longer about this than usual, 
his hands being numbed. His object drifts up before he 
is quite ready for it. He catches at it, thinks he 11 make 
sure of the contents of the pockets anyhow, in case he should 
be parted from it, bends right over the stern, and in one of 
these heavy squalls, or in the cross-swell of two steamers, or 
in not being quite prepared, or through all or most or some, 
gets a lurch, overbalances, and goes head-foremost overboard. 
Now see! He can swim, can this man, and instantly he 
strikes out. But in such striking-out he tangles his arms, 
pulls strong on the slip-knot, and it runs home. The object 
he had expected to take in tow floats by, and his own boat 
tows him dead, to where we found him, all entangled in his 
own line. You’ll ask me how I make out about the pockets ? 
First, ril tell you more; there was silver in ’em. How do 
I make that out? Simple and satisfactory. Because he’s 
got it here.” The lecturer held up the tightly clenched right 
hand. 

What is to be done with the remains ? ” asked Lightwood, 

“ If you wouldn’t object to standing by him half a minute, 
sir,” was the reply, “I’ll find the nearest of our men to 
come and take charge of him; — I still call it him, you see,” 
said Mr. Inspector, looking back as he went, with a philo- 
sophical smile upon the force of habit. 

“ Eugene,” said Lightwood — and was about to add “ we 
may wait at a little distance,” when turning his head he 
found that no Eugene was there. 

He raised his voice and called “ Eugene! Holloa! ” But 
no Eugene replied. 

It was broad daylight now, and he looked about. But no 
Eugene was in all the view. 

Mr. Inspector speedily returning down the wooden stairs 
with a police-constable, Lightwood asked him if he had seen 
his friend leave them ? Mr. Inspector could not exactly say 
that he had seen him go, but had noticed that he was restless. 

“ Singular and entertaining combination, sir, your friend ” 

“ I wish it had not been a part of his singular and enter- 
taining combination to give me the slip under these dreary 
circumstances at this time of the morning,” said Lightwood. 
“ Can we get anything hot to drink? ” 


THE BIRD OF FREY BROUGHT DOWN 


197 


We could, and we did. In a public-house kitchen with 
a large fire. We got hot brandy and water, and it revived 
us wonderfully. Mr. Inspector having to Mr. Riderhood 
announced his official intention of “ keeping his eye upon 
him,^’ stood him in a corner of the fireplace, like a wet um- 
brella, and took no further outward and visible notice of 
that honest man, except ordering a separate service of brandy 
and water for him: apparently out of the public funds. 

As Mortimer Lightwood sat before the blazing fire, con- 
scious of drinking brandy and water then and there in his 
sleep, and yet at one and the same time drinking burnt sherry 
at the Six Jolly Fellowships, and lying under the boat on the 
river shore, and sitting in the boat that Riderhood rowed, 
and listening to the lecture recently concluded, and having 
to dine in the Temple wdth an unknown man who described 
himself as M. R. F. Eugene Gaffer Harmon, and said he lived 
at Hailstorm, — as he passed through these curious vicissi- 
tudes of fatigue and slumber, arranged upon the scale of a 
dozen hours to the second, he became aware of answering 
aloud a communication of pressing importance that had never 
been made to him, and then turned it into a cough on behold- 
ing Mr. Inspector. For he felt, with some natural indignation, 
that that functionary might otherwise suspect him of having 
closed his eyes, or wandered in his attention. 

Here, just before us, you see,” said Mr. Inspector. 

“ / see,” said Lightwood, with dignity. 

“ And had hot brandy and water too, you see,” said Mr. 
Inspector, “ and then cut off at a great rate.” 

“ Who? ” said Lightwood. 

“ Your friend, you know.” 

“ / know,” he replied, again with dignity. 

After hearing, in a mist through which Mr. Inspector 
loomed vague and large, that the officer took upon himself to 
prepare the dead man’s daughter for what had befallen in the 
night, and generally that he took everything upon himself, 
Mortimer Lightwood stumbled in his sleep to a cab-stand, 
called a cab, and had entered the army and committed a 
capital military offence and been tried by court-martial and 
found guilty and had arranged his affairs and been marched 
out to be shot, before the door banged. 


198 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Hard work rowing the cab through the City to the Temple, 
for a cup of from five to ten thousand pounds value, given by 
Mr. Boffin; and hard work holding forth at that immeasur- 
able length to Eugene (when he had been rescued with a rope 
from the running pavement) for making off in that extra- 
ordinary manner! But he offered such ample apologies, and 
was so very penitent, that when Lightwood got out of the 
cab, he gave the driver a particular charge to be careful of 
him. Which the driver (knowing there was no other fare 
left inside) stared at prodigiously. 

In short, the night’s work had so exhausted and worn out 
this actor in it, that he had become a mere somnambulist. 
He was too tired to rest in his sleep, until he was even tired 
out of being too tired, and dropped into oblivion. Late in 
the afternoon he awoke, and in some anxiety sent round to 
Eugene’s lodging hard by, to inquire if he were up yet ? 

Oh yes, he was up. In fact, he had not been to bed. He 
had just come home. And here he was, close following on 
the heels of the message. 

“ Why, what bloodshot, draggled, dishevelled spectacle is 
this I ” cried Mortimer. 

Are my feathers so very much rumpled ? ” said Eugene, 
coolly going up to the looking-glass. “ They are rather out 
of sorts. But consider. Such a night for plumage ! ” 

“ Such a night! ” repeated Mortimer. “ What became of 
you in the morning ? ” 

“ My dear felloAV,” said Eugene, sitting on his bed, “ I felt 
that we had bored one another so long, that an unbroken 
continuanee of those relations must inevitably terminate in 
our flying to opposite points of the earth. I also felt that I 
had committed every crime in the Newgate Calendar. So, 
for mingled considerations of friendship and felony, I took a 
walk.” 


CHAPTER XV 


TWO NEW SERVANTS 

Mr. and Mrs. BofBn sat after breakfast, in the Bower, a 
prey to prosperity. Mr. Boffin’s face denoted Care and Com- 
plication. Many disordered papers were before him, and he 
looked at them about as hopefully as an innocent civilian 
might look at a crowd of troops whom he was required at 
five minutes’ notice to manoeuvre and review. He had been 
engaged in some attempts to make notes of these papers; 
but being troubled (as men of his stamp often are) with an 
exceedingly distrustful and corrective thumb, that busy 
member had so often interposed to smear his notes, that they 
were little more legible than the various impressions of itself, 
which blurred his nose and forehead. It is curious to con- 
sider, in such a case as Mr. Boffin’s, what a cheap article 
ink is, and how far it may be made to go. As a grain of 
musk will scent a drawer for many years, and still lose 
nothing appreciable of its original weight, so a halfpenny- 
worth of ink would blot Mr. Boffin to the roots of his hair 
and the calves of his legs, without inscribing a line on the 
paper before him, or appearing to diminish in the inkstand. 

Mr. Boffin was in such severe literary difficulties that his 
eyes were prominent and fixed, and his breathing was ster- 
torous, when, to the great relief of Mrs. Boffin, who observed 
these symptoms with alarfn, the yard bell rang. 

“ Who’s that, I wonder? ” said Mrs. Boffin. 

Mr. Boffin drew a long breath, laid down his pen, looked 
at his notes as doubting whether he had the pleasure of their 
acquaintance, and appeared, on a second perusal of their 
countenances, to be confirmed in his impression that he had 
not, when there was announced by the hammer-headed young 
man: 


200 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Mr. Rokesmith.” 

“ Oh! ” said Mr. BofSn. “ Oh indeed! Our and the Wil- 
fers’ Mutual Friend, my dear. Yes. Ask him to come 
in.” 

Mr. Rokesmith appeared. 

“ Sit down, sir,” said Mr. Boffin, shaking hands with him. 
“ Mrs. Boffin you’re already acquainted with. Well, sir, I 
am rather unprepared to see you, for, to tell you the truth. 
I’ve been so busy with one thing and another, that I’ve not 
had time to turn your offer over.” 

“ That’s apology for both of us; for Mr. Boffin, and for me 
as well,” said the smiling Mrs. Boffin. “ But Lor! we can 
talk it over now; can’t us ? ” 

Mr. Rokesmith bowed, thanked her, and said he hoped so. 

“ Let me see then,” resumed Mr. Boffin, with his hand to 
his chin. “ It was Secretary that you named : wasn’t it?” 

I said Secretary,” assented Mr. Rokesmith. 

“ It rather puzzled me at the time,” said Mr. Boffin, “ and 
it rather puzzled me and Mrs. Boffin when we spoke of it 
afterwards, because (not to make a mystery of our belief) we 
have always believed a Secretary to be a piece of furniture, 
mostly of mahogany, lined with green baize or leather, with 
a lot of little drawers in it. Now you won’t think I take a 
liberty when I mention that you certainly ain’t that” 

Certainly not, said Mr. Rokesmith. But he had used the 
word in the sense of Steward. 

“ Why, as to Steward, you see,” returned Mr. Boffin, with 
his hand still to his chin, “ the odds are that Mrs. Boffin and 
me may never go upon the water. Being both bad sailors, 
we should want a Steward if we did; but there’s generally 
one provided.” 

Mr. Rokesmith again explained; defining the duties he 
sought to undertake, as those of general superintendent, or 
manager, or overlooker, or man of business. 

“Now, for instance — come!” said Mr. Boffin, in his 
pouncing way. “ If you entered my employment, what 
would you do ? ” 

“ I would keep exact accounts of all the expenditure you 
sanctioned, Mr. Boffin. I would write your letters, under 
your direction. I would transact your business with people 


TWO NEW SERVANTS 201 

in your pay or employment. I would,” with a glance and a 
half-smile at the table, “ arrange your papers ” 

Mr. Boffin rubbed his inky ear, and looked at his wife. 

“ — And so arrange them as to have them always in order 
for immediate reference, with a note of the contents of each 
outside it.” 

“ I tell you what,” said Mr. Boffin, slowly crumpling his 
own blotted note in his hand; “ if you’ll turn to at these 
present papers, and see what you can make of ’em, I shall 
know better what I can make of you.” 

No sooner said than done. Relinquishing his hat and 
gloves, Mr. Rokesmith sat down quietly at the table, arranged 
the open papers into an orderly heap, cast his eyes over each 
in succession, folded it, docketed it on the outside, laid it in 
a second heap, and, when that second heap was complete and 
the first gone, took from his pocket a piec^ of string and tied 
it together with a remarkably dexterous hand at a running 
curve and a loop. 

“ Good! ” said Mr. Boffin. “ Very good. Now let us hear 
what they’re all about', will you be so good ? ” 

John Rokesmith read his abstracts aloud. They were all 
about the new house. Decorator’s estimate, so much. Furni- 
ture estimate, so much. Estimate for furniture of offices, so 
much. . Coach-maker’s estimate, so much. Horse-dealer’s 
estimate, so much. Harness-maker’s estimate, so much. 
Goldsmith’s estimate, so much. Total, so very much. Then 
came correspondence. Acceptance of Mr. Boffin’s offer of 
such a date, and to such an effect. Rejection of Mr. Boffin’s 
proposal of such a date and to such an effect. Concerning 
Mr. Boffin’s scheme of such another date to such another 
effect. All compact and methodical. 

“Apple-pie order!” said Mr. Boffin, after checking off 
each inscription with his hand, like a man beating time. 
“ And whatever you do with your ink, / can’t think, for 
you’re as clean as a whistle after it. Now, as to a letter. 
Let’s,” said Mr. Boffin, rubbing his hands in his pleasantly 
childish admiration, “ let’s try a letter next.” 

“ To whom shall it be addressed, Mr. Boffin ? ” 

“ Any one. Yourself.” 

Mr. Rokesmith quickly wrote, and then read aloud: 


202 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ ‘ Mr. Boffin presents his compliments to Mr. John Roke- 
smith, and begs to say that he has decided on giving Mr. 
John Rokesmith a trial in the capacity he desires to fill. 
Mr. Boffin takes Mr. John Rokesmith at his word, in post- 
poning to some indefinite period the consideration of salary. 
It is quite understood that Mr, Boffin is in no way committed 
on that point. Mr. Boffin has merely to add, that he relies 
on Mr. John Rokesmith’s assurance that he will be faithful 
and serviceable. Mr. John Rokesmith will please enter on 
his duties immediately.' " 

“ Well! Now, Noddy!” cried Mrs. Boffin, clapping her 
hands, that is a good one! ” 

Mr. Boffin was no less delighted; indeed, in his own bosom, 
he regarded both the composition itself and the device that 
had given birth to it, as a very remarkable monument of 
human ingenuity. . 

“ And I tell you, my deary,” said Mrs. Boffin, that if you 
don’t close with Mr. Rokesmith now at once, and if you ever 
go a-muddling yourself again with things never meant nor 
made for you, you’ll have an apoplexy — besides iron-mould- 
ing your linen — and you’ll break my heart.” 

Mr. Boffin embraced his spouse for these words of wisdom, 
and then, congratulating John Rokesmith on the brilliancy 
of his achievements, gave him his hand in pledge of their 
new relations. So did Mrs. Boffin. 

“ Now,” said Mr. Boffin, who, in his frankness, felt that it 
did not become him to have a gentleman in his employment 
five minutes, without reposing some confidence in him, “ you 
must be let a little more into our affairs, Rokesmith. I 
mentioned to you, when I made your acquaintance, or I 
might better say when you made mine, that Mrs. Boffin’s 
inclinations was setting in the way of Fashion, but that I 
didn’t know how fashionable we might or might not grow. 
Well! Mrs. Boffin has carried the day, and we’re going in 
neck and crop for Fashion.” 

I rather inferred that, sir,” replied John Rokesmith, 
“ from the scale on which your new establishment is to be 
maintained.” 

” Yes,” said Mr. Boffin, “ it’s to be a Spanker. The fact 
is, my literary man named to me that a house with which 


TWO NEW SERVANTS 203 

he is, as I may say, connected — in which he has an in- 
terest ” 

“ As property? ” inquired John Rokesmith. 

“ Why, no,’’ said Mr. Boffin, “ not exactly that; a sort of 
a family tie.” 

Association ? ” the Secretary suggested. 

“Ah! ” said Mr. Boffin. Perhaps. Anyhow, he named 
to me that the house had a board up. ‘ This Eminently 
Aristocratic Mansion to be let or sold.’ Me and Mrs. Boffin 
went to look at it, and finding it beyond a doubt Eminently 
Aristocratic (though a trifle high and dull, which after all 
may be part of the same thing) took it. My literary man 
was so friendly as to drop into a charming piece of poetry 
on that occasion, in which he complimented Mrs. Boffin on 
coming into possession of — how did it go, my dear? ” 

Mrs. Boffin replied: 

“ ‘The gay, the gay and festive scene, 

The halls, the halls of dazzling light.’ ” 

“ That’s it. And it was made neater by there really being 
two halls in the house, a front ’un and a back ’un, besides 
the servants’. He likewise dropped into a very pretty piece 
of poetry to be sure, respecting the extent to which he would 
be willing to put himself out of the way to bring Mrs. Boffin 
round, in case she should ever get low in her spirits in the 
house. Mrs. Boffin has a wonderful memory. Will you 
repeat it, my dear ? ” 

Mrs. BoflSn complied, by reciting the verses in which this 
obliging offer had been made, exactly as she had received 
them. 

“ ‘ I’ll tell thee how the maiden wept, Mrs. Boffin, 

When her true love' was slain, ma’am. 

And how her broken spirit slept, Mrs. Boffin, 

And never woke again, ma’am. 

I’ll tell thee (if agreeable to Mr. Boffin) how the steed drew nigh. 
And left his lord afar; 

And if my tale (which I hope Mr. Boffin might excuse) should 
make you sigh, 
ril strike the light guitar.’ ” 

“Correct to the letter!” said Mr. Boffin. “And I con- 
sider that the poetry brings us both in, in a beautiful manner.” 


204 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


The effect of the poem on the Secretary being evidently to 
astonish him, Mr. Boffin was confirmed in his high opinion 
of it, and was greatly pleased. 

Now, you see, Rokesmith,” he went on, “ a literary man 
— with a wooden leg — is liable to jealousy. I shall therefore 
cast about for comfortable ways and means of not calling up 
Wegg’s jealousy, but of keepiug you in your department, 
and keeping him in his.’" 

^‘Lor!” cried Mrs. Boffin. “What I say is, the world’s 
\vide enough for all of us ! ” 

“ So it is, my dear,” said Mr. Boffin, “ when not literary. 
But when so, not so. And I am bound to bear in mind 
that I took Wegg on, at a time when I had no thought of 
being fashionable or of leaving the Bower. To let him feel 
himself anyways slighted now, would be to be guilty of a 
meanness, and to act like having one’s head turned by the 
halls of dazzling light. Which Lord forbid! Rokesmith, 
what shall we say about your living in the house ? ” 

“ In this house ? ” 

“ No, no. I have got other plans for this house. In the 
new house ? ” 

“ That will be as you please, Mr. Boffin. I hold myself 
quite at your disposal. You know where I live at present.” 

“Well!” said Mr. Boffin, after considering the point; 
“ suppose you keep as you are for the present, and we’ll 
decide by and by. You’ll begin to take charge at once, of all 
that’s going on in the new house, will you? ” 

“ Most willingly. I will begin this very day. Will you 
give me the address ? ” 

Mr. Boffin repeated it, and the Secretary wrote it down in 
his pocket-book. Mrs. Boffin took the opportunity of his 
being so engaged, to get a better observation of his face than 
she had yet taken. It impressed her in his favour, for she 
nodded aside to Mr. Boffin, “ I like him.” 

“ I will see directly that everything is in train, Mr. 
Boffin.” 

“ Thank’ee. Being here, would you care at all to look 
round the Bower?” 

“ I should greatly like it. I have heard so much of its 
story.” 


TWO NEW SERVANTS 205 

“ Come! ” said Mr. BofRii. And he and Mrs. Boffin led 
the way. 

A gloomy house the Bower, with sordid signs on it of 
having been, through its long existence as Harmony Jail, in 
miserly holding. Bare of paint, bare of paper on the walls, 
bare of furniture, bare of experience of human life. What- 
ever is built by man for man’s occupation, must, like natural 
creations, fulfil the intention of its existence, or soon perish. 
This old house had wasted more from desuetude than it 
would have wasted from use, twenty years for one. 

A certain leanness falls upon houses not sufficiently imbued 
with life (as if they were nourished upon it), which was very 
noticeable here. The staircase, balustrades, and rails, had a 
spare look — an air of being denuded to the bone — which 
the panels of the walls and the jambs of the doors and win- 
dows also bore. The scanty movables partook of it; save 
for the cleanliness of the place, the dust into which they were 
all resolving would have lain thick on the floors; and those, 
both in colour and in grain, were worn like old faces that 
had kept much alone. 

The bedroom where the clutching old man had lost his 
grip on life was left as he had left it. There was the old 
grisly four-post bedstead, without hangings, and with a jail- 
like upper rim of iron and spikes; and there was the old 
patch-work counterpane. There was the tight-clenched old 
bureau, receding atop like a bad and secret forehead; there 
was the cumbersome old, table with twisted legs, at the bed- 
side; and there was the box upon it, in which the will had 
lain. A few- old chairs with patch-work covers, under which 
the more precious stuff to be preserved had slowly lost its 
quality of colour without imparting pleasure to any eye, 
stood against the wall. A hard family likeness was on all 
these things. 

The room was kept like this, Rokesmith,” said Mr. Boffin, 
“ against the son’s return. In short, everything in the house 
was kept exactly as it came to us, for him to see and approve. 
Even now nothing is changed but our own room below-stairs 
that you have just left. When the son came home for the 
last time in his life, and for the las.t time in his life saw 
his father, it was most likely in this room that they met.” 


206 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


As the Secretary looked all round it, his eye rested on a 
side door in a comer. 

Another staircase,” said Mr. Boffin, unlocking the door, 

leading down into the yard. We’ll go down this way, as 
you may like to see the yard, and it’s all in the road. When 
the son was a little child, it was up and down these stairs 
that he mostly came and went to his father. He was very 
timid of his father. I’ve seen him sit on these stairs, in his 
shy way, poor child, many a time. Me and Mrs. Boffin 
have comforted him, sitting with his little book on these 
stairs often.” 

“ Ah! And his poor sister too,” said Mrs. Boffin. ‘‘ And 
here’s the sunny place on the white wall where they one day 
measured one another. Their own little hands wrote up 
their names here, only with a pencil; but the names are 
here still, and the poor dears gone for ever.” 

“ We must take care of the names, old lady,” said Mr. 
Boffin. We must take care of the names. They shan’t be 
rubbed out in our time, nor yet, if we can help it, in the 
time after us. Poor little children! ” 

Ah! Poor little children! ” said Mrs. Boffin. 

They had opened the door at the bottom of the staircase 
giving on the yard, and they stood in the sunlight, looking 
at the scrawl of the two unsteady childish hands two or three 
steps up the staircase. There was something in this simple 
memento of a blighted childhood, and in the tenderness of 
Mrs. Boffin, that touched the Secretary. 

Mr. Boffin then showed his new man of business the 
Mounds, and his own particular Mound which had been left 
him as his legacy under the will before he acquired the 
whole estate. 

“It would have been enough for us,” said Mr. Boffin, 
“ in case it had pleased God to spare the last of those 
two young lives and sorrowful deaths. We didn’t want the 
rest. ” 

At the treasures of the yard, and at the outside of the 
house, and at the detached building which Mr. Boffin pointed 
out as the residence of himself and his wife during the many 
years of their service, the Secretary looked with interest. It 
was not until Mr. Boffin had shown him every wonder of the 


TWO NEW SERVANTS 207 

Bower twice over, that he remembered his having duties to 
discharge elsewhere. 

“ You have no instructions to give me, Mr. Boffin, in 
reference to this place ? ” 

“ Not any, Rokesmith. No.” 

Might I ask, without seeming impertinent, whether you 
have any intention of selling it? ” 

Certainly not. In remembrance of our old master, our 
old master’s children, and our old service, me and Mrs. Boffin 
mean to keep it up as it stands.” 

The Secretary’s eyes glanced with so much meaning in 
them at the Mounds, that Mr. Boffin said, as if in answer 
to a remark: 

“ Ay, ay, that’s another thing. I may sell them, though 
I should be sorry to see the neighbourhood deprived of ’em 
too. It’ll look but a poor dead flat without the Mounds. 
Still I don’t say that Vm going to keep ’em always there, for 
the sake of the beauty of the landscape. There’s no hurry 
about it; that’s all I say at present. I ain’t a scholar in 
much, Rokesmith, but I’m a pretty fair scholar in dust. I 
can price the Mounds to a fraction, and I know how they 
can be best disposed of, and likewise that they take no harm 
by standing where they do. You’ll look in to-morrow, will 
you be so kind ? ” 

“ Every day. And the sooner I can get you into your new 
house, complete, the better you will be pleased, sir? ” 

“ Well, it ain’t that I’m in a mortal hurry,” said Mr. 
Boffin, “ only when you do pay people for looking alive, it’s 
as well to know that they are looking alive. Ain’t that 
your opinion ? ” 

‘‘ Quite!” replied the Secretary; and so withdrew. 

“ Now,” said Mr. Boffin to himself, subsiding into his 
regular series of turns in the yard, if I can make it com- 
fortable with Wegg, my affairs will be going smooth.” 

The man of low cunning had, of course, acquired a mastery 
over the man of high simplicity. The mean man had, of 
course, got the better of the generous man. How long such 
conquests last is another matter; that they are achieved is 
every-day experience, not even to be flourished away by 
Podsnappery itself. The undesigning Boffin had become so 


208 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


far immeshed by the wily Wegg that his mind misgave him 
he was a very designing man indeed in purposing to do 
more for Wegg. It seemed to him (so skilful was Wegg) 
that he was plotting darkly, when he was contriving to do 
the very thing that Wegg was plotting to get him to do. 
And thus, while he was mentally turning the kindest of 
kind faces on Wegg this morning, he was not absolutely sure 
but that he might somehow deserve the charge of turning his 
back on him. 

For these reasons Mr. Boffin passed but anxious hours until 
evening came, and with it Mr. Wegg, stumping leisurely to 
the Roman Empire. At about this period Mr. Boffin had 
become profoundly interested in the fortunes of a great 
militaiy leader known to him as Bully Sawyers, but perhaps 
better known to fame and easier of identification by the 
classical student, under the less Britannic name of Belisarius. 
Even this general’s career paled in interest for Mr. Boffin 
before the clearing of his conscience with Wegg; and hence, 
when that literary gentleman had according to custom eaten 
and drunk until he was all aglow, and when he took up his 
book with the usual chirping introduction, “ And now, Mr. 
Boffin, sir, we’ll decline and we’ll fall!’’ Mr. Boffin stopped 
him. 

“ You remember, Wegg, when I first told you that I 
wanted to make a sort of offer to you? ” 

“ Let me get on my considering cap, sir,” replied that 
gentleman, turning the open book face downward. “ When 
you first told me that you wanted to make a sort of offer to 
me ? Now let me think ” (as if there were the least necessity). 
“ Yes, to be sure I do, Mr. Boffin. It was at my corner. 
To be sure it was! You had first asked me whether I liked 
your name, and Candour had compelled a reply in the 
negative case. I little thought then, sir, how familiar that 
name would come to be! ” 

“ I hope it will be more familiar still, Wegg.” 

“ Do you, Mr. Boffin? Much obliged to you, I’m sure. 
Is it your pleasure, sir, that we decline and we fall?” with 
a feint of taking up the book. 

“Not just yet awhile, Wegg. In fact, I have got another 
offer to make you.” 


TWO NEW SERVANTS 


209 


Mr. Wegg (who had had nothing else in his mind for 
several nights) took off his spectacles with an air of bland 
surprise. 

“ And I hope you’ll like it, Wegg.” 

“ Thank you, sir,” returned that reticent individual. “ 1 
hope it may prove so. On all accounts, I am sure.” (This, 
as a philanthropic aspiration.) 

“ What do you think,” said Mr. Boffin, “ of not keeping a 
stall, Wegg ? ” 

“ I think, sir,” replied Wegg, “ that I should like to be 
shown the gentleman prepared to make it worth my while! ” 

“ Here he is,” said Mr. Boffin. 

Mr. Wegg was going to say. My Benefactor, and had said 
My Bene, when a grandiloquent change came over him. 

“ No, Mr. Boffin, not you, sir. Anybody but you. Do 
not fear, Mr. Boffin, that I shall contaminate the premises 
which your gold has bought, with my lowly pursuits. I am 
aware, sir, that it would not become me to carry on my little 
traffic under the windows of your mansion. I have already 
thought of that, ^d taken my measures. No need to be 
bought out, sir. Would Stepney Fields be considered in- 
trusive? If not remote enough, I can go remoter. In the 
words of the poet’s song, which I do not quite remember: 

‘ Thrown on the wide world, doom’d to wander and roam, 

Bereft of my parents, bereft of a home, 

A stranger to something and what’s his name joy, 

Behold little Edmund the poor Peasant boy.’ 

— And equally,” said Mr. Wegg, repairing the want, of direct 
application in the last line, “ behold myself on a similar 
footing! ” 

‘‘ Now, Wegg, Wegg, Wegg,” remonstrated the excellent 
Boffin. “ You are too sensitive.” 

“ I know I am, sir,” returned Wegg, with obstinate mag- 
nanimity. “ I am acquainted with my faults. I always 
was, from a child, too sensitive.” 

“But listen,” pursued the Golden Dustman; “hear me 
out, Wegg. You have taken it into your head that I mean to 
pension you off.” 

“ True, sir,” returned Wegg, still with an obstinate mag- 


210 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


nanimity, I am acquainted with my faults. Far be it 
from me to deny them. I have taken it into my head.’' 

“ But I don't mean it.” 

The assurance seemed hardly as comforting to Mr. Wegg as 
Mr. Boffin intended it to be. Indeed, an appreciable elonga- 
tion of his visage might have been observed as he replied : 

“ Don’t you, indeed, sir? ” 

‘‘ No,” pursued Mr. Boffin; “ because that would express, 
as I understand it, that you were not going to do anything 
to deserve your money. But you are; you are.” 

“ That, sir,” replied Mr. Wegg, cheering up bravely, “ is 
quite another pair of shoes. Now my independence as a man 
is again elevated. Now I no longer 

‘ Weep for the hour, 

When to Boffin’s Bower, 

The Lord of the valley with offers came; 

Neither does the moon hide her light 
From the heavens to-night, 

And weep behind her clouds o’er any individual in the present 
Company’s shame.’ 

— Please to proceed, Mr. Boffin.” 

Thank’ ee, Wegg, both for your confidence in me and for 
your frequent dropping into poetry; both of which is 
friendly. Well, then; my idea is, that you should give up 
your stall, and that I should put you into the Bower here, 
to keep it for us. It’s a pleasant spot; and a man with coals 
and candles and a pound a week might be in clover here.” 

“ Hem! Would that man, sir — we will say that man, for 
the purposes of argueyment; ” Mr. Wegg made a smiling 
demonstration of great perspicuity here; “ would that man, 
sir, be expected to throw any other capacity in, or would 
any other capacity be considered extra ? Now let us (for the 
purposes of argueyment) suppose that man to be engaged 
as a reader: say (for the purposes of argueyment) in the 
evening. Would that man’s pay as a reader in the evening 
be added to the other amount, which, adopting your language, 
we will call clover; or would it merge into that amount, or 
clover? ” 

“ Well,” said Mr. Boffin, “ I suppose it would be added.” 

“ I suppose it would, sir. You are right, sir. Exactly 


TWO NEW SERVANTS 


211 


my own views, Mr. Boffin.” Here Wegg rose, and balancing 
himself on his wooden leg, fluttered over his prey with 
extended hand. “ Mr. Boffin, consider it done. Say no more, 
sir, not a word more. My stall and I are for ever parted. 
The collection of ballads will in future be reserved for private 
study, with the object of making poetry tributary ” — Wegg 
was so proud of having found this word, that he said it again, 
with a capital letter — “ Tributary to friendship. Mr. 
Boffin, don’t allow yourself to be made uncomfortable by the 
pang it gives me to part from my stock and stall. Similar 
emotion was undergone by my own father when promoted for 
his merits from his occupation as a waterman to a situation 
under Government. His Christian name was Thomas. His 
words at the time (I was then an infant, but so deep was 
their impression on me that I committed them to memory) 
were : 

‘ Then farewell, my trim-built wherry, 

Oars and coat and badge farewell 1 
Never more at Chelsea Ferry 
Shall your Thomas take a spell! ’ 

— My father got over it, Mr. Boffin, and so shall I.” 

While delivering these valedictory observations, Wegg 
continually disappointed Mr. Boffin of his hand by flourish- 
ing it in the air. He now darted it at his patron, who took 
it, and felt his mind relieved of a great weight: observing 
that as they had arranged their joint affairs so satisfactorily, 
he would now be glad to look into those of Bully Sawyers. 
Which, indeed, had been left overnight in a very unpromising 
posture, and for whose impending expedition against the Per- 
sians the weather had been by no means favourable all day. 

Mr. Wegg resumed his spectacles therefore. But Sawyers 
was not to be of the party that night; for, before Wegg had 
found his place, Mrs. Boffin’s tread was heard upon the stairs, 
so unusually heavy and hurried, that Mr. Boffin would have 
started up at the sound, anticipating some occurrence much 
out of the common course, even though she had not also 
called to him in an agitated tone. 

Mr. Boffin hurried out, and found her on the dark staircase, 
panting, with a lighted candle in her hand. 

“ What’s the matter, my dear? ” 


212 


OUii MUTUAL FHIEND 


“ I don’t know; I don’t know; but I wish you’d come 
up-stairs.” 

Much surprised, Mr. Boffin went up-stairs and accompanied 
Mrs. Boffin into their own room: a second large room on the 
same floor as the room in which the late proprietor had died. 
Mr. Boffin looked all round him, and saw nothing more un- 
usual than various articles of folded linen on a large chest, 
which Mrs. Boffin had been sorting. 

“What is it, my dear? Why, you’re frightened! You 
frightened ? ” 

“ I am not one of that sort certainly,” said Mrs. Boffin, as 
she sat down in a chair to recover herself, and took her 
husband’s arm; “ but it’s very strange! ” 

“ What is, my dear? ” 

“ Noddy, the faces of the old man and the two children 
are all over the house to-night.” 

“My dear!” exclaimed Mr. Boffin. But not without a 
certain uncomfortable sensatiou gliding down his back. 

“ I know it must sound foolish, and yet it is so.” 

“ Where did you think you saw them ? ” 

“ I don’t know that I think I saw them anywhere. I felt 
them.” 

“ Touched them ? ” 

“ No. Felt them in the air. I was sorting those things on 
the chest, and not thinking of the old man or the children, 
but singing to myself, when all in a moment I felt there 
was a face growing out of the dark.” 

“ What face? ” asked her husband, looking about him. 

“ For a moment it was the old man’s, and then it got 
younger. For a moment it was both the children’s, and 
then it got older. For a moment it was a strange face, and 
then it was all the faces.” 

“ And then it was gone ? ” 

“ Yes; and then it was gone.” 

“ Where were yoii then, old lady? ” 

“ Here, at the chest. Well, I got the better of it, and 
went on sorting, and went on singing to myself. ‘ Lor! ’ I 
says, ‘ ril think of something else — something comfortable 
— and put it out of my head.’ So I thought of the new house 
and Miss Bella Wilfer, and was thinking at a great rate 


TWO NEW SERVANTS 


213 


with that sheet there in my hand, when, all of a sudden, the 
faces seemed to be hidden in among the folds of it, and I let 
it drop.” 

As it still lay on the floor where it had fallen, Mr. Boffin 
picked it up and laid it on the chest. 

“ And then you ran down-stairs? ” 

“ No. I thought Fd try another room, and shake it off. 
I says to myself, ‘ Fll go and walk slowdy up and down the 
old man’s room three times, from end to end, and then I 
shall have conquered it.’ I went in with the candle in my 
hand, but the moment I came near the bed, the air got 
thick with them.” 

“ With the faces ? ” 

“ Yes, and I even felt they were in the dark behind the 
side-door, and on the little staircase, floating away into the 
yard. Then I called you.” 

Mr. Boffin, lost in amazement, looked at Mrs. Boffin. Mrs. 
Boffin, lost in her own fluttered inability to make this out, 
looked at Mr. Boffin. 

“ I think, my dear,” said the Golden Dustman, “ Fll at 
once get rid of Wegg for the night, because he’s coming 
to inhabit the Bower, and it might be put into his head 
or somebody else’s, if he heard this and it got about, that the 
house is haunted. Whereas we know better. Don’t we ? ” 

“ I never had the feeling in the house before,” said Mrs. 
Boffin; “ and I have been about it alone at all hours of the 
night. I have been in the house when Death was in it, and 
I have been in the house when Murder was a new part of its 
adventures, and I never had a fright in it yet.” 

“ And won’t again, my dear,” said Mr. Boffin. “ Depend 
upon it, it comes of thinking and dwelling on that dark 
spot.” 

“ Yes; but why didn’t it come before ? ” asked Mrs. Boffin. 

This draft on Mr. Boffin’s philosophy could only be met by 
that gentleman with the remark that everything that is at 
all, must begin at some time. Then, tucking his wife’s arm 
under his own, that she might not be left by herself to be 
troubled again, he descended to release Wegg. Who, being 
something drowsy after his plentiful repast, and constitution- 
ally of a shirking temperament, was well enough pleased to 


214 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


stump away, without doing what he had come to do, and was 
paid for doing. 

Mr. Boffin then put on his hat, and Mrs. Boffin her shawl; 
and the pair, further provided with a bunch of keys and a 
lighted lantern, went all over the dismal house — dismal 
everywhere but in their own two rooms — ■ from cellar to 
cock-loft. Not resting satisfied with giving that much chase 
to Mrs. Boffin’s fancies, they pursued them into the yard and 
out-J)uildings, and under the Mounds. And setting the lan- 
tern, when all was done, at the foot of one of the Mounds, they 
comfortably trotted to and fro for an evening walk, to the 
end that the murky cobwebs in Mrs. Boffin’s brain might be 
blown away. 

‘‘ There, my dear! ” said Mr. Boffin when they came in to 
supper. That was the treatment, you see. Completely 
worked round, haven’t you ? ” 

“ Yes, deary,” said Mrs. Boffin, laying aside her shawl. 
“ I’m not nervous any more. I’m not a bit troubled now. 
I’d go anywhere about the house the same as ever. But ” 

“ Eh! ” said Mr. Boffin. 

‘‘But I’ve only to shut my eyes.” 

“ And what then ? ” 

“ Why then,” said Mrs. Boffin, speaking with her eyes 
closed, and her left hand thoughtfully touching her brow, 
“then, there they are! The old man’s face, and it gets 
younger. The two children’s faces, and they get older. A 
face that I don’t know. And then all the faces! ” 

Opening her eyes again, and seeing her husband’s face 
across the table, she leaned forward to give it a pat on the 
cheek, and sat down to supper, declaring it to be the best 
face in the world. 


CHAPTER XVI 


MINDERS AND REMINDERS 

The Secretary lost no time in getting to work, and his 
vigilance and method soon set their mark on the Golden 
Dustman’s affairs. His earnestness in determining to under- 
stand the length and breadth and depth of every piece of 
work submitted to him by his employer, was as special as 
his dispatch in transacting it. He accepted no information 
or explanation at second hand, but made himself the master 
of everything confided to him. 

One part of the Secretary’s conduct, underlying all the 
rest, might have been mistrusted by a man with a better 
knowledge of men than the Golden Dustman had. The 
Secretary was as far from being inquisitive or intrusive as 
Secretary could be, but nothing less than a complete under- 
standing of the whole of the affairs would content him. It 
soon became apparent (from the knowledge with which he set 
out) that he must have been to the office where the Harmon 
will was registered, and must have read the will. He antici- 
pated Mr. Boffin’s consideration whether he should be advised 
with on this or that topic, by showing that he already knew 
of it and understood it. He did this with no attempt at 
concealment, seeming to be satisfied that it was part of his 
duty to have prepared himself at all attainable points for its 
utmost discharge. 

This might — let it be repeated — have awakened some 
little vague mistrust in a man more worldly-wise than the 
Golden Dustman. On the other hand, the Secretary was 
discerning, discreet, and silent, though as zealous as if the 
affairs had been his own. He showed no love of patronage 
or the command of money, but distinctly preferred resigning 
both to Mr. Boffin. If, in his limited sphere, he sought 


216 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


power, it was the power of knowledge; the power derivable 
from a perfect comprehension of his business. 

As on the Secretary’s face there was a nameless cloud, so 
on his manner there was a shadow equally indefinable. It was 
not that he was embarrassed, as on that first night with the 
Wilfer family; he was habitually unembarrassed now, and yet 
the something remained. It was not that his manner was 
bad, as on that occasion; it was now very good, as being 
modest, gracious, and ready. Yet the something never left 
it. It has been written of men who have undergone a cruel 
captivity, or who have passed through a terrible strait, or 
who in self-preservation have killed a defenceless fellow- 
creature, that the record thereof has never faded from their 
countenances until they died. Was there any such record 
here ? 

He established a temporary office for himself in the new 
house, and all went well under his hand, with one singular 
exception. He manifestly objected to communicate with Mr. 
Boffin’s solicitor. Two or three times, when there was some 
slight occasion for his doing so, he transferred the task to 
Mr. Boffin; and his evasion of it soon became so curiously 
apparent, that Mr. Boffin spoke to him on the subject of his 
reluctance. 

It is so,” the Secretary admitted. “ I would rather not.” 

Had he any personal objection to Mr. Lightwood ? 

“ I don’t know him.” 

Had he suffered from law-suits ? 

“ Not more than other men,” was his short answer. 

Was he prejudiced against the race of lawyers ? 

“ No. But while I am in your employment, sir, I would 
rather be excused from going between the lawyer and the 
client. Of course if you press it, Mr. Boffin, I am ready to 
comply. But I should take it as a great favour if you would 
not press it without urgent occasion.” 

Now it could not be said that there was urgent occasion, 
for Lightwood retained no other affairs in his hands than 
such as still lingered and languished about the undiscovered 
criminal, and such as arose out of the purchase of the house. 
Many other matters that might have travelled to him, now 
stopped short at the Secretary, under whose administration 


MINDERS AND REMINDERS 


217 


they were far more expeditiously and satisfactorily disposed 
of than they would have been if they had got into Young 
Blight’s domain. This the Golden Dustman quite understood. 
Even the matter immediately in hand was of very little 
moment as requiring personal appearance on the Secretary’s 
part, for it amounted to no more than this: — The death of 
Hexam rendering the sweat of the honest man’s brow un- 
profitable, the honest man had shufflingly declined to moisten 
his brow for nothing, with that severe exertion which is 
known in legal circles as swearing your way through a stone 
wall. Consequently, that new light had gone sputtering out. 
But the airing of the old facts had led some one concerned 
to suggest that it would be well before they were reconsigned 
to their gloomy shelf — now probably for ever — to induce 
or compel that Mr. Julius Handford to reappear and be 
questioned. And all traces of Mr. Julius Handford being 
lost, Lightwood now referred to his client for authority to 
seek him through public advertisement. 

“ Does your objection go to writing to Lightwood, Roke- 
smith?”^ 

“ Not in the least, sir.” 

“ Then perhaps you’ll write him a line, and say he is free 
to do what he likes. I don’t think it promises.” 

“ I don’t think it promises,” said the Secretary. 

“ Still, he may do what he likes.” 

I will write immediately. Let me thank you for so 
considerately yielding to my disinclination. It may seem less 
unreasonable, if I avow to you that although I don’t know 
Mr. Lightwood, I have a disagreeable association connected 
with him. It is not his fault; he is not at all to blame for 
it, and does not even know my name.” 

Mr. Boffln dismissed the matter with a nod or two. The 
letter was written, and next day Mr. Julius Handford was 
advertised for. He was requested to place himself in com- 
munication with Mr. Mortimer Lightwood, as a possible 
means of furthering the ends of justice, and a reward was 
offered to any one acquainted with his whereabout who would 
communicate the same to the said Mr. Mortimer Lightwood 
at his office in the Temple. Every day for six weeks this 
advertisement appeared at the head of all the newspapers, 


218 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


and every day for six weeks the Secretary, when he saw it, 
said to himself, in the tone in which he had said to his em- 
ployer, — “I don’t think it promises! ” 

Among his first occupations the pursuit of that orphan 
wanted by Mrs. Boffin held a conspicuous place. From the 
earliest moment of his engagement he showed a particular 
desire to please her, and knowing her to have this object at 
heart, he followed it up with unwearying alacrity and in- 
terest. 

Mr. and Mrs. Milvey had found their search a difficult one. 
Either an eligible orphan was of the wrong sex (which almost 
always happened) or was too old, or too young, or too sickly, 
or too dirty, or too much accustomed to the streets, or too 
likely to run away; or it was found impossible to complete 
the philanthropic transaction without buying the orphan. 
For the instant it became known that anybody wanted the 
orphan, up started some affectionate relative of the orphan 
who put a price upon the orphan’s head. The suddenness 
of an orphan’s rise in the market was not to be paralleled by 
the maddest records of the Stock Exchange. He would be at 
five thousand per cent, discount out at nurse making a mud 
pie at nine in the morning, and (being inquired for) would 
go up to five thousand per cent, premium before noon. The 
market was rigged ” in various artful ways. Counterfeit 
stock got into circulation. Parents boldly represented them- 
selves as dead, and brought their orphans with them. Gen- 
uine orphan-stock was surreptitiously withdrawn from the 
market. It being announced, by emissaries posted for the 
purpose, that Mr. and Mrs. Milvey were coming down 
the court, orphan scrip would be instantly concealed, and 
production refused, save on a condition usually stated by the 
brokers as a “ gallon of beer.” Likewise, fluctuations of a 
wild and South-Sea nature were occasioned by orphan-holders 
keeping back, and then rushing into the market a dozen 
together. But the uniform principle at the root of all these 
various operations was bargain and sale: and that principle 
could not be recognised by Mr. and Mrs. Milvey. 

At length tidings were received by the Reverend Frank of 
a charming orphan to be found at Brentford. One of the 
deceased parents (late his parishioners) had a poor widowed 


MINDERS AND REMINDERS 


219 


grandmother in that agreeable town, and she, Mrs Bettj' 
Higden, had carried off the orphan with maternal care, but 
could not afford to keep him. 

The Secretary proposed to Mrs Boffin, either to go down 
himself and take a preliminary survey of this orphan, or to 
drive her down, that she might at once form her own opinion. 
Mrs. Boffin preferring the latter course, they set off one 
morning in a hired phaeton, conveying the hammer- headed 
young man behind them. 

The abode of Mrs. Betty Higden was not easy to finrl, 
lying in such complicated back settlements of muddy Brent- 
ford that they left their equipage at the sign of The Three 
Magpies, and went in search of it on foot. After many 
inquiries and defeats, there was pointed out to them in a 
lane, a very small cottage residence, with a board across the 
open doorway, hooked on to which board by the armpits 
was a young gentleman of tender years, angling for mud 
with a headless wooden horse and line. In this young 
sportsman, distinguished by a crisply curling auburn head 
and a bluff countenance, the Secretary descried the orphan. 

It unfortunately happened as they quickened their pace, 
that the orphan, lost to considerations of personal safety in 
the ardour of the moment, overbalanced himself and toppled 
into the street. Being an orphan of a chubby conformation, 
he then took to rolling, and had rolled into the gutter before 
they could come up. From the gutter he was rescued by 
John Rokesmith, and thus the first meeting with Mrs. 
Higden was inaugurated by the awkward circumstance of 
their being in possession — one would say at first sight 
unlawful possession — of the orphan upside down and purple 
in the countenance. The board across the doorway too, acting 
as a trap equally for the feet of Mrs. Higden coming out, 
and the feet of Mrs. Boffin and John Rokesmith going in, 
greatly increased the difficulty of the situation: to which 
the cries of the orphan imparted a lugubrious anti inhuman 
character. 

At first, it was impossible to explain, on account of the 
orphan's “holding his breath:” a most terrific proceeding, 
superinducing, in the orphan, lead-colour rigidity and a deadly 
silence, compared with which his cries were music yielding 


220 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


the height of enjoyment. But as he gradually recovered, 
Mrs. BofRn gradually introduced herself, and smiling peace 
was gradually wooed back to Mrs. Betty Higden’s home. 

It was then perceived to be a small home with a large 
mangle in it, at the handle of which machine stood a very 
long boy, with a very little head, and an open mouth of 
disproportionate capacity that seemed to assist his eyes in 
staring at the visitors. In a comer below the mangle, on 
a couple of stools, sat two very little children: a boy and 
a girl; and when the very long boy, in an interval of staring, 
took a turn at the mangle, it was alarming to see how it 
lunged itself at those two innocents, like a catapult designed 
for their destruction, harmlessly retiring when within an 
inch of their heads. The room was clean and neat. It had 
a brick floor, and a window of diamond panes, and a flounce 
hanging below the chimneypiece, and string snailed from 
bottom to top outside the window on which scarlet-beans 
were to grow in the coming season if the Fates were pro- 
pitious. However propitious they might have been, in the 
seasons that were gone, to Betty Higden in the matter of 
beans, they had not been very favourable in the matter of 
coins; for it was easy to see that she was poor. 

She was one of those old women, was Mrs. Betty Higden, 
who by dint of an indomitable purpose and a strong consti- 
tution fight out many years, though each year has come with 
its new knock-down blows fresh to the fight against her, 
wearied by it; an active old woman, with a bright dark eye 
and a resolute face, yet quite a tender creature too; not a 
logically- reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may 
count in Heaven as high as heads. 

‘‘ Yes, sure! ” said she, when the business was opened, 
“ Mrs. Milvey had the kindness to write to me, ma’am, and 
I got Sloppy to read it. It was a pretty letter. But she’s 
an affable lady.” 

The visitors glanced at the long boy, who seemed to indi- 
cate by a broader stare of his mouth and eyes that in him 
Sloppy stood confessed. 

For I ain’t, you must know,” said Betty, “ much of a 
hand at reading writing-hand, though I can read my Bible 
and most print. And I do love a newspaper. You mightn’t 





L ?*f * 






MINDERS AND REMINDERS 221 

think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. 
He do the police in different voices.” 

The visitors again considered it a point of politeness to look 
at Sloppy, who, looking at them, suddenly threw back his 
head, extended his mouth to its utmost width, and laughed 
loud and long. At this the two innocents, with their brains 
in that apparent danger, laughed, and Mrs. Higden laughed, 
and the orphan laughed, and then the visitors laughed 
Which was more cheerful than intelligible. 

Then Sloppy seeming to be seized with an industrious 
mania or fury, turned to at the mangle, and impelled it at 
the heads of the innocents with such a creaking and rumbling, 
that Mrs. Higden stopped him. 

The gentlefolks can’t hear themselves speak. Sloppy. 
Bide a bit, bide a bit! ” 

“ Is that the dear child in your lap ? ” said Mrs. Boffin. 

“ Yes, ma’am, this is Johnny.” 

“Johnny, too!” cried Mrs. Boffin, turning to the Secre- 
tary; “ already Johnny! Only one of the two names left 
to give him! He’s a pretty boy.” 

With his chin tucked down in his shy, childish manner, 
he was looking furtively at Mrs. Boffin out of his blue eyes, 
and reaching his fat dimpled hand up to the lips of the old 
woman, who was kissing it by times. 

“ Yes, ma’am, he’s a pretty boy, he’s a dear darling boy, 
he’s the child of my own last left daughter’s daughter. But 
she’s gone the way of all the rest.” 

“ Those are not his brother and sister ? ” said Mrs. Boffin. 

“ Oh dear no, ma’am. Those are Minders.” 

“ Minders ? ” the Secretary repeated. 

“ Left to be Minded, sir. I keep a Minding-School. I can 
take only three, on account of the mangle. But I love 
children, and Four-pence a week is Four- pence. Come here. 
Toddles and Poddies.” 

Toddles was the pet name of the boy; Poddies of the 
girl. At their little unsteady pace, they came across the 
floor, hand-in-hand, as if they were traversing an extremely 
difficult road intersected by brooks, and, when they had had 
their heads patted by Mrs. Betty Higden, made lunges at the 
orphan, dramatically representing an attempt to bear him, 


222 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


crowing, into captivity and slavery. All the three children 
enjoyed this to a delightful extent, and the sympathetic 
Sloppy again laughed long and loud. When it was discreet 
to stop the play, Betty Higden said, “ Go to your seats. 
Toddles and Poddies,’' and they returned hand-in-hand across 
country, seeming to find the brooks rather swollen by late 
rains. 

“ And Master — or Mister — Sloppy ? ” said the Secretary, 
in doubt whether he was man, boy, or what. 

‘‘ A love-child,” returned Betty Higden, dropping her 
voice; parents never known; found in the street. He 

was brought up in the ” with a shiver of repugnance, 

“ the House.” 

“ The Poor-house? ” said the Secretary. 

Mrs. Higden set that resolute old face of hers, and darkly 
nodded yes. 

“ You dislike the mention of it.” 

^‘Dislike the mention of it?” answered the old woman. 
“ Kill me sooner than take me there. Throw this pretty 
child under cart-horses’ feet and a loaded waggon, sooner 
than take him there. Come to us and find us all a-dying, 
and set a light to us all where we lie, and let us all blaze 
away with the house into a heap of cinders, sooner than 
move a corpse of us there! ” 

A surprising spirit in this lonely woman after so many 
years of hard working and hard living, my Lords and Gentle- 
men and Honourable Boards! What is it that we call it in 
our grandiose speeches? British independence, rather per- 
verted ? Is that, or something like it, the ring of cant ? 

“ Do I never read in the newspapers,” said the dame, 
fondling the child — “ God help me and the like of me! — 
how the worn-out people that do come down to that, get 
driven from post to pillar, and pillar to post, a-purpose to tire 
them out! Do I never read how they are put off, put off, 
put off — how they are grudged, grudged, grudged the 
shelter, or the doctor, or the drop of physic, or the bit of 
bread ? Do I never read how they grow heartsick of it and 
give it up, after having let themselves drop so low, and how 
they after all die out for want of help ? Then I say, I hope 
I can die as well as another, and I’ll die without that disgrace.” 


MINDERS AND REMINDERS 


223 


Absolutely impossible, my T^ords and Gentlemen and 
Honourable Boards, by any stretch of legislative wisdom to 
set these perverse people right in their logic ? 

Johnny, my pretty,” continued old Betty, caressing the 
child, and rather mourning over it than speaking to it, “ youi 
old Granny Betty is nigher fourscore year than threescore 
and ten. She never begged nor had a penny of the Union 
money in all her life. She paid scot and she paid lot when 
she had money to pay; she worked when she could, and she 
starved when she must. You pray that your Granny may 
have strength enough left her at the last (she’s strong for 
an old one, Johnny), to get up from her bed and run and 
hide herself, and swown to death in a hole, sooner than fall 
into the hands of those Cruel Jacks we read of, that dodge 
and drive, and worry and weary, and scorn and shame, the 
decent poor.” 

A brilliant success, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honour- 
able Boards, to have brought it to this in the minds of the 
best of the poor! Under submission, might it be w^orth 
thinking of, at any odd time? 

The fright and abhorrence that Mrs. Betty Higden 
smoothed out of her strong face as she ended this diversion, 
showed how seriously she had meant it. 

“ And does he work for you? ” asked the Secretary, gentl} 
bringing the discourse back to Master or Mister Sloppy. 

“ Yes,” said Betty with a good-humoured smile and nod 
of the head. “ And well too.” 

“ Does he live here? ” 

“ He lives more here than anywhere. He was thought 
to be no better than a Natural, and first come to me as a 
Minder. I made interest with Mr. Blogg the Beadle to have 
him as a Minder, seeing him by chance up at church, and 
thinking I might do something with him. For he was a weak 
rickety creetur then.” 

“ Is he called by his right name? ” 

“ Why, you see, speaking quite correctly, he has no right 
name. I always understood he took his name from being 
found on a Sloppy night.” 

“ He seems an amiable fellow.” 

“ Bless you, sir, there’s not a bit of him,” returned Betty, 


224 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ that’s not amiable. So you may judge how amiable he is, 
by running your eye along his heigh th.” 

Of an ungainly make was Sloppy. Too much of him 
longwise, too little of him broadwise, and too many sharp 
angles of him angle-wise. One of those shambling male 
human creatures born to be indiscreetly candid in the revela- 
tion of buttons; every button he had about him glaring at 
the public to a quite preternatural extent. A considerable 
capital of knee and elbow and wrist and ankle had Sloppy, 
and he didn’t know how to dispose of it to the best advan- 
tage, but was always investing it in wrong securities, and so 
getting himself into embarrassed circumstances. Full-Private 
Number One in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file 
of life was Sloppy, and yet had his glimmering notions of 
standing true to the Colours. 

“And now,” said Mrs. Boffin, “ concerning Johnny.” 

As Johnny, with his chin tucked in and his lips pouting, 
reclined in Betty’s lap, concentrating his blue eyes on the 
visitors and shading them from observation with a dimpled 
arm, old Betty took one of his fresh fat hands in her withered 
right, and fell to gently beating it on her withered left. 

“ Yes, ma’am. Concerning Johnny.” 

“ If you trust the dear child to me,” said Mrs. Boffin, with 
a face inviting trust, “ he shall have the best of homes, the 
best of care, the best of education, the best of friends. Please 
God, I will be a true good mother to him! ” 

“ I am thankful to you, ma’am, and the dear child would 
be thankful if he was old enough to understand.” Still 
lightly beating the little hand upon her own. “ I wouldn’t 
stand in the dear child’s light, not if I had all my life before 
me, instead of a very little of it. But I hope you won’t 
take it ill that I cleave to the child closer than words can 
tell, for he’s the last living thing left me.” 

“Take it ill, my dear soul? Is it likely? And you so 
tender of him as to bring him home here! ” 

“ I have seen,” said Betty, still with that light beat upon 
her hard rough hand, “ so many of them on my lap. And 
they are all gone but this one! I am ashamed to seem so 
selfish, but I don’t really mean it. It’ll be the making of 
his fortune, and he’ll be a gentleman when I am dead. I — 


MINDERS AND REMINDERS 


225 


I — don’t know what conies over me. I — try against it. 
Don’t notice me!” The light beat stopped, the resolute 
mouth gave way, and the fine strong old face broke up into 
weakness and tears. 

Now, greatly to the relief of the visitors, the emotional 
Sloppy no sooner beheld his patroness in this condition, than, 
throwing back his head and throwing open his mouth, he 
lifted up his voice and bellowed. This alarming note of 
something wrong instantly terrified Toddles and Poddies, who 
were no sooner heard to roar surprisingly, than Johnny, 
curving himself the wrong way and striking out at Mrs. 
Boffin with a pair of indifferent shoes, became a prey to 
despair. The absurdity of the situation put its pathos to the 
rout. Mrs. Betty Higden was herself in a moment, and 
brought them all to order with that speed, that Sloppy, 
stopping short in a polysyllabic bellow, transferred his energy 
to the mangle, and had taken several penitential turns before 
he could be stopped. 

“ There, there, there! ” said Mrs. Boffin, almost regarding 
her kind self as the most ruthless of women. “ Nothing is 
going to be done. Nobody need be frightened. We’re all 
comfortable; ain’t we, Mrs. Higden? ” 

“ Sure and certain we are,” returned Betty. 

‘‘ i\.nd there really is no hurry, you know,” said Mrs. 
Boffin, in a lower voice. “ Take time to think of it, my 
good creature!” 

Don’t you fear me no more, ma’am,” said Betty; “ I 
thought of it for good yesterday. I don’t know what come 
over me just now, but it’ll never come again.” 

“ Well, then, Johnny shall have more time to think of it,” 
returned Mrs. Boffin; “ the pretty child shall have time 
to get used to it. And you’ll get him more used to it, if you 
think well of it; won’t you ? ” 

Betty undertook that, cheerfully and readily. 

“ Lor,” cried Mrs. Boffin, looking radiantly about her, “ we 
want to make everybody happy, not dismal! — And perhaps 
you wouldn’t mind letting me know how used to it you begin 
to get, and how it all goes on ? ” 

“ I’ll send Sloppy,” said Mrs. Higden. 

“And this gentleman who has come with me will pay him 


226 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


for his trouble,” said Mrs. Boffin. And Mr. Sloppy, when- 
ever you come to my house, be sure you never go away with- 
out having had a good dinner of meat, beer, vegetables, and 
pudding.” 

This still further brightened the face of affairs; for the 
highly sympathetic Sloppy, first broadly staring and grinning, 
and then roaring with laughter. Toddles and Poddies followed 
suit, and Johnny trumped the trick. T. and P. considering 
these favourable circumstances for the resumption of that 
dramatic descent upon Johnny, again came across country 
hand-in-hand upon a buccaneering expedition; and this 
having been fought out in the chimney corner behind Mrs. 
Higden’s chair, with great valour on both sides, those des- 
perate pirates returned hand-in-hand to their stools, across 
the dry bed of a mountain torrent. 

“ You must tell me what I can do for you, Betty my friend,” 
said Mrs. Boffin confidentially, “ if not to-day, next time.” 

“ Thank you all the same, ma’am, but I want nothing for 
myself. I can work. I’m strong. I can walk twenty mile 
if I’m put to it.” Old Betty was proud, and said it with a 
sparkle in her bright eyes. 

“ Yes, but there are some little comforts that you wouldn’t 
be the worse for,” returned Mrs. Boffin. “ Bless ye, I wasn’t 
born a lady any more than you.” 

“ It seems to me,” said Betty, smiling, “ that you w^ere born 
a lady, and a true one, or there never was a lady born. But 
I couldn’t take anything from you, my dear. I never did 
take anything from any one. It ain’t that I’m not grateful, 
but I love to earn it better.” 

‘‘Well, well!” returned Mrs. Boffin. “I only spoke of 
little things, or I wouldn’t have taken the liberty.” 

Betty put her visitor’s hand to her lips, in acknowledg- 
ment of the delicate answer. Wonderfully upright her figure 
was, and wonderfully self-reliant her look, as, standing facing 
her visitor, she explained herself further. 

“ If I could have kept the dear child, without the dread 
that’s always upon me of his coming to that fate I have 
spoken of, I could never have parted with him, even to you. 
For I love him, I love him, I love him! I love my husband 
long dead and gone, in him; I love my children dead and 


MINDERS AND REMINDERS 


227 


gone, in him; I love my young and hopeful days dead and 
gone, in him. I couldn’t sell that love, and look you in your 
bright kind face. It’s a free gift. I am in want of nothing. 
When my strength fails me, if I can but die out quick and 
quiet, I shall be quite content. I have stood between my 
dead and that shame I have spoken of, and it has been kept 
off from every one of them. Sewed into my gown,” with her 
hand upon her breast, “ is just enough to lay me in the grave. 
Only see that it’s rightly spent, so as I may rest free to the 
last from that cruelty and disgrace, and you’ll have done 
much more than a little thing for me, and all that in this 
present world my heart is set upon.” 

Mrs. Betty Higden’s visitor pressed her hand. There was 
no more breaking up of the strong old face into weakness. 
My Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards, it really 
was as composed as our own faces, and almost as dignified. 

And now Johnny was to be inveigled into occupying a 
temporary position on Mrs. Boffin’s lap. It was not until he 
had been piqued into competition with the two diminutive 
Minders, by seeing them successively raised to that post and 
retire from it without injury, that he could be by any means 
induced to leave Mrs. Betty Higden’s skirts; towards which 
he exhibited, even when in Mrs. Boffin’s embrace, strong 
yearnings, spiritual and bodily; the former expressed in a 
very gloomy visage, the latter in extended arms. However, 
a general description of the toy-wonders lurking in Mrs. 
Boffin’s house so far conciliated this worldly-minded orphan 
as to induce him to stare at her frowningly, with a fist in 
his mouth, and even at length to chuckle when a richly- 
caparisoned horse on wheels, with a miraculous gift of 
cantering to cake-shops, was mentioned. This sound being 
taken up by the Minders, swelled into a rapturous trio which 
gave general satisfaction. 

So the interview was considered very successful, and Mrs. 
Boffin was pleased, and all were satisfied. Not least of all. 
Sloppy, who undertook to conduct the visitors back by the 
best way to The Three Magpies, and whom the hammer- 
headed young man much despised. 

This piece of business thus put in train, the Secretary drove 
Mrs. BoflSn back to the Bower, and found employment for 


228 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


himself at the new house until evening. Whether, when even- 
ing came, he took a way to his lodgings that led through fields, 
with any design of finding Miss Bella Wilfer in those fields, 
is not so certain as that she regularly walked there at that 
hour. 

And, moreover, it is certain that there she was. 

No longer in mourning. Miss Bella was dressed in as pretty 
colours as she could muster. There is no denying that she 
was as pretty as they, and that she and the colours went 
very prettily together. She was reading as she walked, and 
of course it is to be inferred, from her showing no knowledge 
of Mr. Rokesmith’s approach, that she did not know he was 
approaching. 

“ Eh? ” said Miss Bella, raising her eyes from her book, 
when he stopped before her. “ Oh! it’s you.” 

“ Only I. A fine evening! ” 

” Is it? ” said Bella, looking coldly round. “ I suppose it 
is, now you mention it. I have not been thinking of the 
evening.” 

“ So intent upon your book? ” 

“ Ye-e-es,” replied Bella, with a drawl of indifference. 

“ A love story. Miss Wilfer? ” 

“ Oh dear no, or I shouldn’t be reading it. It’s more 
about money than anything else.” 

” And does it say that money is better than anything? ” 

“ Upon my word,” returned Bella, “ I forget what it says, 
but you can find out for yourself, if you like, Mr. Rokesmith. 

I don’t want it any more.” 

The Secretary took the book — she had fluttered the leaves 
as if it were a fan — and walked beside her. 

“ I am charged with a message for you. Miss Wilfer.” 

” Impossible, I think! ” said Bella, with another drawl. 

” From Mrs. Boffin. She desired me to assure you of the 
pleasure she has in finding that she will be ready to receive 
you in another week or two at furthest.” 

Bella turned her head towards him, with her prettily- 
insolent eyebrows raised, and her eyelids drooping. As 
much as to say, “ How did you come by the message, pray ? ” 

“ I have been waiting for an opportunity of telling you 
that I am Mr. Boffin’s Secretary.” 


MINDERS AND REMINDERS 229 

I am as wise as ever,” said Miss Bella, loftily, “for I 
don’t know what a Secretary is. Not that it signifies.” 

“ Not at all.” 

A covert glance at her face, as he walked beside her, 
showed him that she had not expected his ready assent to 
that proposition. 

“ Then you are going to be always there, Mr. Rokesmith ? ” 
she inquired, as if that would be a drawback. 

“Always? No. Very much there? Yes.” 

“ Dear me! ” drawled Bella in a tone of mortification. 

“But my position there as Secretary will be very different 
from yours as guest. You will know little or nothing about 
me. I shall transact the business; you will transact the 
pleasure. I shall have my salary to earn; you will have 
nothing to do but to enjoy and attract.” 

“Attract, sir?” said Bella, again with her eyebrows 
raised, and her eyelids drooping. “ I don’t understand 
you.” 

Without replying on this point, Mr. Rokesmith went on. 

“ Excuse me; w^hen I first saw you in your black dress 

ft 

(“ There! ” was Miss Bella’s mental exclamation. “ What 
did I say to them at home ? Everybody noticed that ridiculous 
mourning! ”) 

“ When I first saw you in your black dress, I was at a 
loss to account for that distinction between yourself and 
your family. I hope it was not impertinent to speculate 
upon it? ” 

“ I hope not, I am sure,” said Miss Bella, haughtily. 
“But you ought to know best how you speculated upon it.” 

]\Ir. Rokesmith inclined his head in a deprecatory manner, 
and went on. 

“Since I have been entrusted with Mr. Boffin’s affairs, 
I have necessarily come to understand the little mystery. I 
venture to remark that I feel persuaded that much of your 
loss may be repaired. I speak, of course, merely of wealth, 
Miss Wilfer The loss of a perfect stranger, whose worth, 
or worthlessness, I cannot estimate — nor you either — is 
beside the question. But this excellent gentleman and lady 
are so full of simplicity, so full of generosity, so inclined 


230 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


towards you, and so desirous to — how shall I express it? — 
to make amends for their good fortune, that you have only 
to respond.” 

As he watched her with another covert look, he saw a 
certain ambitious triumph in her face which no assumed 
coldness could conceal. 

“ As we have been brought under one roof by an accidental 
combination of circumstances, which oddly extends itself to 
the new relations before us, 1 have taken the liberty of saying 
these few words. You don’t consider them intrusive, I hope ? ” 
said the Secretary with deference. 

“ Really, Mr. Rokesmith, I can’t say what I consider 
them,” returned the young lady. “ They are perfectly new 
to me, and may be founded altogether on your own imagi- 
nation.” 

“ You will see.” 

These same fields were opposite the Wilfer premises. The 
discreet Mrs. Wilfer now looking out of window and behold- 
ing her daughter in conference with her lodger, instantly 
tied up her head and came out for a casual walk. 

“ I have been telling Miss Wilfer,” said John Rokesmith, 
as the majestic lady came stalking up, “ that I have become, 
by a curious chance, Mr. Boffin’s Secretary or man of busi- 
ness.” 

“ I have not,” returned Mrs. Wilfer, waving her gloves 
in her chronic state of dignity and vague ill-usage, “ the 
honour of any intimate acquaintance with Mr. Boffin, and it 
is not for me to congratulate that gentleman on the acquisi- 
tion he has made.” 

“ A poor one enough,” said Rokesmith. 

“ Pardon me,” returned Mrs. Wilfer, “ the merits of Mr. 
Boffin may be highly distinguished — may be more distin- 
guished than the countenance of Mrs. Boffin would imply 
— but it were the insanity of humility to deem him worthy 
of a better assistant.” 

“You are very good. I have also been telling Miss Wilfer 
that she is expected very shortly at the new residence in 
town.” 

“ Having tacitly consented,” said Mrs. Wilfer, with a grand 
shrug of her shoulders, and another wave of her gloves. 


MINDERS AND REMINDERS 231 

“ to my child’s acceptance of the proffered attentions of 
Mrs. Boffin, I interpose no objection.” 

Here Miss Bella offered the remonstrance: Don’t talk 
nonsense, ma, please.” 

“ Peace! ” said Mrs. Wilfer. 

“ No, ma, I am not going to be made so absurd. Inter- 
posing objections 1 ” 

“ I say,” repeated Mrs. Wilfer, with a vast access of 
grandeur, “ that I am not going to interpose objections. If 
Mrs. Boffin (to whose countenance no disciple of Lavater 
could possibly for a single moment subscribe),” with a shiver, 
“ seeks to illuminate her new residence in town with the 
attractions of a child of mine, I am content that she should 
be favoured by the company of a child of mine.” 

You use the word, ma’am, I have myself used,” said 
Rokesmith, with a glance at Bella, “ when you speak of Miss 
Wilfer’s attractions there.” 

Pardon me,” returned Mrs. Wilfer, with dreadful so- 
lemnity, “ but I had not finished.” 

“ Pray excuse me.” 

“ I was about to say,” pursued Mrs. Wilfer, who clearly 
had not had the faintest idea of saying anything more: 
“ that when I use the term attractions, I do so with the quali- 
fication that I do not mean it in any way whatever.” 

The excellent lady delivered this luminous elucidation of 
her views with an air of greatly obliging her hearers, and 
greatly distinguishing herself. Whereat Miss Bella laughed 
a scornful little laugh and said: 

“ Quite enough about this, I am sure, on ail sides. Have 
the goodness, Mr. Rokesmith, to give my love to Mrs. Bof- 
fin ” 

“ Pardon me,” cried Mrs. Wilfer. “ Compliments.” 

‘‘ Love! ” repeated Bella, with a little stamp of her foot. 

“ No! ” said Mrs. Wilfer monotonously. “ Compliments.” 

(“ Say Miss Wilfer’s love, and Mrs. Wilfer’s compliments,” 
the Secretary proposed, as a compromise.) 

“ And I shall be very glad to come when she is ready for 
me. The sooner the better.” 

“ One last word, Bella,” said Mrs. Wilfer, “ before descend- 
ing to the family apartment. I trust that as a child of mine 


232 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


you will ever be sensible that it will be graceful in you, when 
associating with Mr. and Mrs. Boffin upon equal terms, to 
remember that the Secretary, Mr. Rokesmith, as your father’s 
lodger, has a claim on your good word.” 

The condescension with which Mrs. Wilfer delivered this 
proclamation of patronage was as wonderful as the swiftness 
with which the lodger had lost caste in the Secretary. He 
smiled as the mother retired down-stairs, but his face fell as 
the daughter followed. 

“ So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so 
careless, so hard to touch, so hard to turn! ” he said, bitterly. 

And added as he went up-stairs, “ And yet so pretty, so 
pretty! ” 

And added presently, as he walked to and fro in his room, 
“And if she knew!” 

She knew that he was shaking the house by his walking to 
and fro; and she declared it another of the miseries of being 
poor, that you couldn’t get rid of a haunting Secretary, 
stump — sjump — stumping overhead in the dark, like a 
Ghost. 


CHAPTER XVII 


A DISMAL SWAMP 

And now, in the blooming summer days, behold Mr. and 
Mrs. Boffin established in the eminently aristocratic family 
mansion, and behold all manner of crawling, creeping, 
fluttering, and buzzing creatures, attracted by the gold dust 
of the Golden Dustman! 

Foremost among those leaving cards at the eminently 
aristocratic door before it is quite painted, are the Veneer- 
ings : out of breath, one might imagine, from the impetuosity 
of their rush to the eminently aristocratic steps. One copper- 
plate Mrs. Veneering, two copper-plate Mr. Veneerings, and 
a connubial copper-plate Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, requesting 
the honour of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin’s company at dinner with 
the utmost Analytical solemnities. The enchanting Lady 
Tippins leaves a card. Twemlow leaves cards. A tall 
mustard-coloured phaeton tooling up in a solemn manner 
leaves four cards, to wit, a couple of Mr. Podsnaps, a Mrs. 
Podsnap, and a Miss Podsnap. All the world and his wife 
and daughter leave cards. Sometimes the world’s wife has so 
many daughters, that her card reads rather like a Miscella- 
neous Lot at an Auction: comprising Mrs. Tapkins, Miss 
Tapkins, Miss Frederica Tapkins, Miss Antonina Tapkins, 
Miss Malvina Tapkins, and Miss Euphemia Tapkins; at the 
same time, the same lady leaves the card of Mrs. Henry 
George Alfred Swoshle, nee Tapkins; also, a card, Mrs. 
Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, Music, Portland Place. 

Miss Bella Wilfer becomes an inmate, for an indefinite 
period, of the eminently aristocratic dwelling. Mrs. Boffin 
bears Miss Bella away to her milliner’s and dressmaker’s, 
and she gets beautifully dressed. The Veneerings find with 
swift remorse that they have omitted to invite Miss Bella 


234 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Wilfer. One Mrs. Veneering and one Mr. and Mrs. Veneering 
requesting that additional honour, instantly do penance in 
white cardboard on the hall table. Mrs. Tap kins likewise 
discovers her omission, and with promptitude repairs it; 
for herself, for Miss Tapkins, for Miss Frederica Tapkins, 
for Miss Antonina Tapkins, for Miss Malvina Tapkins, and 
for Miss Euphemia Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs. Henry 
George Alfred Swoshle, nee Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs. 
Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, Music, Portland Place. 

Tradesmen’s books hunger, and tradesmen’s mouths water, 
for the gold dust of the Golden Dustman. As Mrs. Boffin 
and Miss Wilfer drive out, or as Mr. Boffin walks out at 
his jog-trot pace, the fishmonger pulls off his hat with an 
air of reverence founded on conviction. His men cleanse 
their fingers on their woollen aprons before presuming to 
touch their foreheads to Mr. Boffin or Lady. The gaping 
salmon and the golden mullet lying on the slab seem to turn 
up their eyes sideways, as they would turn up their hands 
if they had any, in worshipping admiration. The butcher, 
though a portly and a prosperous man, doesn’t know what to 
do with himself, so anxious is he to express humility when 
discovered by the passing Boffins taking the air in a mutton 
grove. Presents are made to the Boffin servants, and bland 
strangers with business-cards meeting said servants in the 
street, offer hypothetical corruption. As, “ Supposing I was 
to be favoured with an order from Mr. Boffin, my dear friend, 
it would be worth my while ” — to do a certain thing that 
I hope might not prove wholly disagreeable to your feelings. 

But no one knows so well as the Secretary, who opens and 
reads the letters, what a set is made at the man marked by 
a stroke of notoriety. Oh the varieties of dust for ocular 
use, offered in exchange for the gold dust of the Golden 
Dustman! Fifty-seven churches to be erected with half- 
crowns, forty-two parsonage houses to be repaired with 
shillings, seven-and-twenty organs to be built with halfpence, 
twelve hundred children to be brought up on postage stamps. 
Not that a half-crown, shilling, halfpenny, or postage stamp, 
would be particularly acceptable from Mr. Boffin, but that it 
is so obvious he is the man to make up the deficiency. And 
then the charities, my Christian brother! And mostly in 


A DISMAL SWAMP 


235 


difficulties, yet mostly lavish, too, in the expensive articles of 
print and paper. Large fat private double letter, sealed 
with ducal coronet. “ .Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. My dear 
Sir, — Having consented to preside at the forthcoming An- 
nual Dinner of the Family Party Fund, and feeling deeply im- 
pressed with the immense usefulness of that noble Institution 
and the great importance of its being supported by a List of 
Stewards that shall prove to the public the interest taken in 
it by popular and distinguished men, I have undertaken to 
ask you to become a Steward on that occasion. Soliciting 
your favourable reply before the 14th instant, I am, My 
Dear Sir, Your faithful servant, Linseed. P.S. The Steward’s 
fee is limited to three Guineas.” Friendly this, on the part 
of the Duke of Linseed (and thoughtful in the postscript), 
only lithographed by the hundred and presenting but a pale 
individuality of address to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in 
quite another hand. It takes two noble Earls and a Viscount, 
combined, to inform Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in an equally 
flattering manner, that an estimable lady in the West of 
England has offered to present a purse containing twenty 
pounds, to the Society for Granting Annuities to Unassuming 
Members of the Middle Classes, if twenty individuals will 
previously present purses of one hundred pounds each. And 
those benevolent noblemen very kindly point out that if 
Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, should wish to present two or 
more purses, it will not be inconsistent with the design of the 
estimable lady in the West of England, provided each purse 
be coupled with the name of some member of his honoured 
and respected family. 

These are the corporate beggars. But there are, besides, 
the individual beggars; and how does the heart of the Secre- 
tary fail him when he has to cope with them! And they 
must be coped with to some extent, because they all enclose 
documents (they call their scraps documents; but they 
are, as to papers deserving the name, what minced veal is 
to a calf), the non-return of which would be their ruin. 
That is to say, they are utterly ruined now, but they would 
be more utterly ruined then. Among these correspondents 
are several daughters of general officers, long accustomed to 
every luxury of life (except spelling), who little thought, when 


236 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


their gallant fathers waged war in the Peninsula, that thej? 
would ever have to appeal to those whom Providence, in its 
inscrutable wisdom, has blessed with untold gold, and from 
among whom they select the name of Nicodemus Boffin, 
Esquire, for a maiden effort in this wise, understanding that 
he has such a heart as never was. The Secretary learns, too, 
that confidence between man and wife would seem to obtain 
but rarely when virtue is in distress, so numerous are the 
wives who take up their pens to ask Mr. Boffin for money 
without the knowledge of their devoted husbands, who would 
never permit it; while, on the other hand, so numerous are 
the husbands who take up their pens to ask Mr. Boffin for 
money without the knowledge of their devoted wives, who 
would instantly go out of their senses if they had the least 
suspicion of the circumstance. There are the inspired beggars, 
too. These were sitting, only yesterday evening, musing over 
a fragment of candle which must soon go out and leave them 
in the dark for the rest of their nights, when surely some 
angel whispered the name of Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, to 
their souls, imparting rays of hope, nay confidence, to which 
they had long been strangers! Akin to these are the sug- 
gestively-befriended beggars. They were partaking of a 
cold potato and water by the flickering and gloomy light of 
a lucifer match, in their lodgings (rent considerably in arrear, 
and heartless landlady threatening expulsion “ like a dog 
into the streets), when a gifted friend happening to look in, 
said, “ Write immediately to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire,” and 
would take no denial. There are the nobly independent 
beggars, too. These, in the days of their abundance, ever 
regarded gold as dross, and have not yet got over that only 
impediment in the way of their amassing wealth, but they 
want no dross from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. No, Mr. 
Boffin, the world may term it pride, paltry pride if you will, 
but they wouldn’t take it if you offered it; a loan, sir — for 
fourteen weeks to the day, interest calculated at the rate of 
five per cent, per annum, to be bestowed upon any charitable 
institution you may name — is all they want of you, and if 
you have the meanness to refuse it, count on being despised 
by these great spirits. There are the beggars of punctual 
business-habits, too. These will make an end of themselves 


A DISMAL SWAMP 


237 


at a quarter to one p m. on Tuesday, if no Post-office order 
is in the interim received from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire; 
arriving after a quarter to one p.m. on Tuesday, it need not be 
sent, as they will then (having made an exact memorandum of 
the heartless circumstances) be “ cold in death.” There are 
the beggars on horseback, too, in another sense from the sense 
of the proverb. These are mounted and ready to start on the 
highway to affluence. The goal is before them, the road is 
in the best condflion, their spurs are on, the steed is willing, 
but, at the last moment, for want of some special thing — a 
clock, a violin, an astronomical telescope, an electrifying 
machine — they must dismount for ever, unless they receive 
its equivalent in money from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. 
Less given to detail are the beggars who make sporting 
ventures. These, usually' to be addressed in reply under 
initials at a country post office, inquire in feminine hands. Dare 
one who cannot disclose herself to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, 
but whose name might startle him were it revealed, solicit the 
immediate advance of two hundred pounds from unexpected 
riches exercising their noblest privilege in the trust of a 
common humanity? 

In such a Dismal Swamp does the new house stand, and 
through it does the Secretary daily struggle breast-high. 
Not to mention all the people alive who have made inventions 
that won’t act, and all the jobbers who job in all the job- 
beries jobbed; though these may be regarded as the Alli- 
gators of the Dismal Swamp, and are always lying by to 
drag the Golden Dustman under. 

But the old house. There are no designs against the 
Golden Dustman there? There are no fish of the shark 
tribe in the Bower waters? Perhaps not. Still, Wegg is 
established there, and would seem, judged by his secret pro- 
ceedings, to cherish a notion of making a discovery. For 
when a man with a wooden leg lies prone on his stomach to 
peep under bedsteads; and hops up ladders, like some extinct 
bird, to survey the tops of presses and cupboards; and pro- 
vides himself an iron rod which he is always poking and 
prodding into dust-mounds; the probability is that he ex- 
pects to find something. 

END OF BOOK I 


BOOK THE SECOND 
BIRDS OF A FEATHER 


CHAPTER I 

OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 

The school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned 
from a book — the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the 
great Preparatory Establishment in which very much that is 
never unlearned is learned without and before book — was 
a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. Its atmosphere was 
oppressive and disagreeable; it was crowded, noisy, and 
confusing; half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state 
of waking stupefaction; the other half kept them in either 
condition by maintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if 
they were performing, out of time and tune, on a ruder sort 
of bagpipe. The teachers, animated solely by good intentions, 
had no idea of execution, and a lamentable jumble was the 
upshot of their kind endeavours. 

It was a school for all ages, and for both sexes. The latter 
were kept apart, and the former were partitioned off into 
square assortments. But all the place was pervaded by a 
grimly ludicrous pretence that every pupil w^as childish and 
innocent. This pretence, much favoured by the lady-visitors, 
led to the ghastliest absurdities. Young women old in the 
vices of the commonest and worst life, were expected to 
profess themselves enthralled by the good child’s book, the 
Adventures of Little Margery, who resided in the village 
cottage by the mill; severely reproved and morally squashed 
the miller when she was five and he was fifty; divided her 


OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 


239 


porridge with singing birds; denied herself a new nankeen 
bonnet, on the ground that the turnips did not wear nankeen 
bonnets, neither did the sheep who ate them; who plaited 
straw and delivered the dreariest orations to all comers, at 
all sorts of unseasonable times. So unwieldy young dredgers 
and hulking mudlarks were referred to the experiences of 
Thomas Twopence, who, having resolved not to rob (under 
circumstances of uncommon atrocity) his particular friend 
and benefactor, of eighteenpence, presently came into super- 
natural possession of three and sixpence, and lived a shining 
light ever afterwards. (Note that the benefactor came to no 
good.) Several swaggering sinners had written their own 
biographies in the same strain; it always appearing from 
the lessons of those very boastful persons, that you were to 
do good, not because it was good, but because you were 
to make a good thing of it. Contrariwise, the adult pupils 
were taught to read (if they could learn) out of the New 
Testament; and by dint of stumbling over the syllables and 
keeping their bewildered eyes on the particular syllables 
coming round to their turn, were as absolutely ignorant of 
the sublime history, as if they had never seen or heard of it. 
An exceedingly and confoundingly perplexing jumble of a 
school, in fact, where black spirits and gray, red spirits and 
white, jumbled jumbled jumbled jumbled, jumbled every 
night. And particularly every Sunday night. For then, an 
inclined plane of unfortunate infants would be handed over 
to the prosiest and worst of all the teachers with good in- 
tentions, whom nobody older would endure. Who, taking 
his stand on the floor before them as chief executioner, would 
be attended by a conventional volunteer boy as executioner’s 
assistant. When and where it first became the conventional 
system that a weary or inattentive infant in a class must 
have its face smoothed downward with a hot hand, or when 
and where the conventional volunteer boy first beheld such 
system in operation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal 
to administer it, matters not. It was the function of the chief 
executioner to hold forth, and it was the function of the aco- 
lyte to dart at sleeping infants, yawning infants, restless 
infants, whimpering infants, and smooth their wretched faces; 
sometimes with one hand, as if he were anointing them for a 


240 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


whisker; sometimes with both hands, applied after the fashion 
of blinkers. And so the jumble would be in action in this 
department for a mortal hour; the exponent drawling on to 
My Dearerr Childerrenerr, let us say, for example, about the 
beautiful coming to the Sepulchre; and repeating the word 
Sepulchre (commonly used among infants) five hundred 
times, and never once hinting what it meant; the conventional 
boy smoothing away right and left, as an infallible com- 
mentary; the whole hot-bed of flushed and exhausted infants 
exchanging measles, rashes, whooping-cough, fever, and 
stomach disorders, as if they were assembled in High Market 
for the purpose. 

Even in this temple of good intentions, an exceptionally 
sharp boy exceptionally determined to learn, could learn 
something, and, having learned it, could impart it much 
better than the teachers; as being more knowing than they, 
and not at the disadvantage in which they stood towards 
the shrewder pupils. In this way it had come about that 
Charley Hexam had risen in the jumble, taught in the jum- 
ble, and been received from the jumble into a better 
school. 

“ So you want to go and see your sister, Hexam ? ” 

“ If you please, Mr. Headstone.” 

“ I have half a mind to go with you. Where does your 
sister live ? ” 

“ Why, she is not settled yet, Mr. Headstone. I’d rather 
you didn’t see her till she’s settled, if it was all the same 
to you.” 

“ Look here, Hexam.” Mr. Bradley Headstone, highly 
certificated stipendiary schoolmaster, drew his right fore- 
finger through one of the buttonholes of the boy’s coat, and 
looked at it attentively. “ I hope your sister may be good 
company for you ? ” 

“ Why do you doubt it, Mr. Headstone ? ” 

“ I did not say I doubted it.” 

No, sir; you didn’t say so.” 

Bradley Headstone looked at his finger again, took it out 
of the buttonhole and looked at it closer, bit the side of it 
and looked at it again. 

“ You see, Hexam, you will be one of us. In good time 


OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 241 

you are sure to pass a creditable examination and become 
one of us. Then the question is ” 

The boy, waited so long for the question, while the school- 
master looked at a new side of his finger, and bit it, and 
looked at it again, that at length the boy repeated: 

“ The question is, sir — ? ” 

“ Whether you had not better leave well alone.” 

“Is it well to leave my sister alone, Mr. Headstone? ” 

“ I do not say so, because I do not know. I put it to you. 
I ask you to think of it. I want you to consider. You know 
how well you are doing here.” 

“ After all, she got me here,” said the boy, with a struggle. 

“ Perceiving the necessity of it,” acquiesced the school- 
master, “ and making up her mind fully to the separation. 
Yes.” 

The boy, with a return of that former reluctance or struggle 
or whatever it was, seemed to debate with himself. At length 
he said, raising his eyes to the master’s face: 

“ I wish you’d come with me and see her, Mr. Headstone, 
though she is not settled. I wish you’d come with me, and 
take her in the rough, and judge her for yourself.” 

“ You are sure you would not like,” asked the school- 
master, “ to prepare her?” 

“ My sister Lizzie,” said the boy, proudly, “ wants no 
preparing, Mr. Headstone. What she is, she is, and shows 
herself to be. There’s no pretending about my sister.” 

His confidence in her sat more easily upon him than the 
indecision with which he had twice contended. It was his 
better nature to be true to her, if it were his worse nature 
to be wholly selfish. And as yet the better nature had the 
stronger hold. 

“ Well, I can spare the evening,” said the schoolmaster. 
“ I am ready to walk with you.” 

“ Thank you, Mr. Headstone. And I am ready to go.” 

Bradley Headstone, in his decent black coat and waistcoat, 
and decent white shirt, and decent formal black tie, and 
decent pantaloons of pepper and salt, with his decent silver 
watch in his pocket and its decent hair-guard round his 
neck, looked a thoroughly decent young man of six-and- 
twenty. He was never seen in any other dress, and yet 


242 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


there was a certain stiffness in his manner of wearing this, 
as if there were a want of adaptation between him and it, 
recalling some mechanics in their holiday clothes. He had 
acquired mechanically a great store of teacher’s knowledge. 
He could do mental arithmetic mechanically, sing at sight 
mechanically, blow various wind instruments mechanically, 
even play the great church organ mechanically. From his 
early childhood up, his mind had been a place of mechanical 
stowage. The arrangement of his wholesale warehouse, so 
that it might be always ready to meet the demands of retail 
dealers — history here, geography there, astronomy to the 
right, political economy to the left — natural history, the 
physical sciences, figures, music, the lower mathematics, 
and what not, all in their several places — this care had 
imparted to his countenance a look of care; while the habit 
of questioning and being questioned had given him a sus- 
picious manner, or a manner that would be better described 
as one of lying in wait. There was a kind of settled trouble 
in the face. It was the face belonging to a naturally slow 
or inattentive intellect that had toiled hard to get what it 
had won, and that had to hold it now that it was gotten. 
He always seemed to be uneasy lest anything should be 
missing from his mental warehouse, and taking stock to 
assure himself. 

Suppression of so much to make room for so much, had 
given him a constrained manner, over and above. Yet 
there was enough of what was animal, and of what was 
fiery (though smouldering), still visible in him, to suggest 
that if young Bradley Headstone, when a pauper lad, had 
chanced to be told off for the sea, he would not have been 
the last man in a ship’s crew. Regarding that origin of his, 
he was proud, moody, and sullen, desiring it to be forgotten. 
And few people knew of it. 

In some visits to the Jumble his attention had been at- 
tracted to this boy Hexam. An undeniable boy for a pupil- 
teacher; an undeniable boy to do credit to the master who 
should bring him on. Combined with this consideration 
there may have been some thought of the pauper lad now 
never to be mentioned. Be that how it might, he had with 
pains gradually worked the boy into his own school, and 


OP AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 


243 


procured him some offices to discharge there, which were 
repaid with food and lodging. Such were the circumstances 
that had brought together Bradley Headstone and young 
Charley Hexam that autumn evening. Autumn, because 
full half a year had come and gone since the bird of prey 
lay dead upon the river-shore. 

The schools — for they were twofold, as the sexes — were 
down in that district of the flat country tending to the Thames, 
where Kent and Surrey meet, and where the railways still 
bestride the market-gardens that will soon die under them. 
The schools were newly built, and there were so many like 
them all over the country, that one might have thought the 
whole were but one restless edifice with the locomotive gift 
of Aladdin’s palace. They were in a neighbourhood which 
looked like a toy neighbourhood taken in blocks out of a box 
by a child of particularly incoherent mind, and set up any- 
how; here, one side of a new street; there, a large solitary 
public-house facing nowhere; here, another unfinished street 
already in ruins; there, a church; here, an immense new 
warehouse; there, a dilapidated old country villa; then, a 
medley of black ditch, sparkling cucumber-frame, rank 
field, richly cultivated kitchen-garden, brick viaduct, arch- 
spanned canal, and disorder of frowziness and fog. As if 
the child had given the table a kick and gone to sleep. 

But even among school-buildings, school-teachers, and 
school-pupils, all according to pattern and all engendered in 
the light of the latest Gospel according to Monotony, the 
older pattern into which so many fortunes have been shaped 
for good and evil, comes out. It came out in Miss Beecher 
the schoolmistress, watering her flowers, as Mr. Bradley 
Headstone walked forth. It came out in Miss Beecher the 
schoolmistress, watering the flowers in the little dusty bit of 
garden attached to her small official residence, with little 
windows like the eyes in needles, and little doors like the 
covers of school-books. 

Small, shining, neat, methodical, and buxom was Miss 
Beecher; cherry-cheeked and tuneful of voice. A little pin- 
cushion, a little housewife, a little book, a little workbox, 
a little set of tables and weights and measures, and a little 
woman, all in one. She could write a little essay on any 


244 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


subject, exactly a slate long, beginning at the left-hand top 
of one side and ending at the right-hand bottom of the other, 
and the essay should be strictly according to rule. If Mr. 
Bradley Headstone had addressed a written proposal of 
marriage to her, she would probably have replied in a com- 
plete little essay on the theme exactly a slate long, but would 
certainly have replied yes. For she loved him. The decent 
hair-guard that went round his neck and took care of his 
decent silver watch was an object of envy to her. So would 
Miss Peecher have gone round his neck and taken care of 
him. Of him, insensible. Because he did not love Miss 
Peecher. 

Miss Peecher’s favourite pupil, who assisted her in her 
little household, was in attendance with a can of A\^ater to 
replenish her little watering-pot, and sufficiently divined the 
state of Miss Peechei’s affections to feel it necessary that she 
herself should love young Charley Hexam. So there was a 
double palpitation among the double stocks and double wall- 
flowers, when the master and the boy looked over the little 
gate. 

“ A fine evening. Miss Peecher,” said the Master. 

A very fine evening, Mr. Headstone,” said Miss Peecher. 

Are you taking a walk ? ” 

“ Hexam and I are going to take a long walk.” 

“ Charming weather,” remarked Miss Peecher, “ for a long 
walk.” 

“ Ours is rather on business than mere pleasure,” said the 
Master. 

Miss Peecher inverting her watering-pot, and very care- 
fully shaking out the few last drops over a flower, as if there 
were some special virtue in them which would make it a 
Jack^s beanstalk before morning, called for replenishment 
to her pupil, who had been speaking to the boy. 

Good night. Miss Peecher,” said the Master. 

“ Good night, Mr. Headstone,” said the Mistress. 

The pupil had been, in her state of pupilage, so imbued 
with the class-custom of stretching out an arm, as if to hail 
a cab or omnibus, whenever she found she had an observa- 
tion on hand to offer to Miss Peecher, that she often did it 
in their domestic relations; and she did it novv 


OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 


245 


“ Well, Mary Anne ? ” said Miss Peecher. 

“ If you please, ma’am, PI ex am said they were going to 
see his sister.” 

“ But that can’t be, I think,” returned Miss Peecher: 
“ because Mr. Headstone can have no business with her.'" 

Mary Anne again hailed. 

“ Well, Mary Anne? ” 

“ If you please, ma’am, perhaps it’s Hexam’s busi- 
ness? ” 

“ That may be,” said Miss Peecher. I didn’t think of 
that. Not that it matters at all.” 

Mary Anne again hailed. 

“ Well, Mary Anne? ” 

“ They say she’s very handsome.” 

“ Oh, Mary Anne, Mary Anne! ” returned Miss Peecher, 
slightly colouring and shaking her head, a little out of hu- 
mour; how often have I told you not to use that vague 
expression, not to speak in that general way? When you 
say they say, what do you mean ? Part of speech They ? ” 

Mary Anne hooked her right ann behind her in her left 
hand, as being under examination, and replied: 

“ Personal pronoun.” 

“ Person, They?” 

“ Third person.” 

Number, They?” 

“ Plural number.” 

“ Then how many do you mean, Mary Anne? Two? Or 
more? ” 

“ I beg your pardon, ma’am,” said Mary Anne, discon- 
certed now she came to think of it; “ but I don’t know 
that I mean more than her brother himself.” As she said it, 
she unhooked her arm. 

“ I felt convinced of it,” returned Miss Peecher, smiling 
again. “ Now pray, Mary Anne, be careful another time. He 
says is very different from they say, remember. Difference 
between he says and they say? Give it me.” 

Mary Anne immediately hooked her right arm behind her 
in her left hand — an attitude absolutely necessary to the 
situation — and replied: “One is indicative mood, present 
tense, third person singular, verb acftve to say. Other is 


246 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


indicative mood, present tense, third person plural, verb 
active to say.” 

“Why verb active, Mary Anne?” 

“ Because it takes a pronoun after it in the objective case, 
Miss Peecher.” 

“ Very good indeed,” remarked Miss Peecher, with en- 
couragement. “ In fact, could not be better. Don’t forget 
to apply it, another time, Mary Anne.” This said. Miss 
Peecher finished the watering of her flowers, and w’ent into 
her little official residence, and took a refresher of the prin- 
cipal rivers and mountains of the world, their breadths, 
depths, and heights, before settling the measurements of the 
body of a dress for her own personal occupation. 

Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam duly got to the 
Surrey side of Westminster Bridge, and crossed the bridge, 
and made along the Middlesex shore towards Millbank. 
In this region are a certain little street, called Church Street, 
and a certain little blind square, called Smith Square, in the 
centre of which last retreat is a very hideous church with 
four towers at the four corners, generally resembling some 
petrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on its back with its 
legs in the air. They found a tree near by in a corner, and 
a blacksmith’s forge, and a timber yard, and a dealer’s in old 
iron. What a rusty portion of a boiler and a great iron 
wheel or so meant by lying half-buried in the dealer’s fore- 
court, nobody seemed to know or want to know. Like the 
Miller of questionable jollity in the song. They cared for 
Nobody, no not they, and Nobody cared for them. 

After making the round of this place, and noting that 
there was a deadly kind of repose on it, more as though it 
had taken laudanum than fallen into a natural rest, they 
stopped at the point where the street and the square joined, 
and where there were some little quiet houses in a row. To 
these Charley Hexam finally led the way, and at one of these 
stopped. 

“ This must be wTere my sister lives, sir. This is where 
she came for a temporary lodging, soon after father’s death.” 

“ How often have you seen her since ? ” 

“ Why, only twice, sir,” returned the boy, with his former 
reluctance; “ but that’^ as much her doing as mine.” 


OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 


247 


** How does she support herself?” 

She was always a fair needle-woman, and she keeps the 
stockroom of a seaman’s outfitter.” 

“ Does she ever work at her own lodging here? ” 

“ Sometimes; but her regular hours and regular occupation 
are at their place of business, I believe, sir. This is the 
number.” 

The boy knocked at a door, and the door promptly opened 
with a spring and a click. A parlour door within a small 
entry stood open, and disclosed a child — a dwarf — a girl — 
a something — sitting on a little low old-fashioned arm-chair, 
which had a kind of little working bench before it. 

“ I can’t get up,” said the child, “ because my back’s bad, 
and my legs are queer. But I’m the person of the house.” 

“ Who else is at home? ” asked Charley Hexam, staring. 

“ Nobody’s at home at present,” returned the child, with 
a glib assertion of her dignity, “ except the person of the 
house. What did you want, young man ? ” 

“ I wanted to see my sister.” 

** Many young men have sisters,” returned the child. 

Give me your name, young man.” 

The queer little figure, and the queer but not ugly little 
face, with its bright gray eyes, were so sharp, that the sharp- 
ness of the manner seemed unavoidable. As if, being turned 
out of that mould, it must be sharp. 

“ Hexam is my name.” 

“ Ah, indeed ? ” said the person of the house. “ I thought 
it might be. Your sister will be in in about a quarter of an 
hour. I am very fond of your sister. She’s my particular 
friend. Take a seat. And this gentleman’s name?” 

Mr. Headstone, my schoolmaster.” 

“ Take a seat. And would you please to shut the street 
door first? I can’t very well do it myself, because my back’s 
so bad, and my legs are so queer.” 

They complied in silence, and the little figure went on 
with its work of gumming or gluing together with a camel's 
hair brush certain pieces of cardboanl and thin wood, pre- 
viously cut into various shapes. The scissors and knives 
upon the bench showed that the child herself had cut them; 
and the bright scraps of velvet and silk and ribbon also 


248 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


strewn upon the bench showed that when duly stuffed (and 
stuffing too was there) , she was to cover them smartly. The 
dexterity of her nimble fingers was remarkable, and, as she 
brought two thin edges accurately together by giving them 
a little bite, she would glance at the visitors out of the cor- 
ners of her gray eyes with a look that out-sharpened all her 
other sharpness. 

“ You can’t tell me the name of my trade. I’ll be bound,” 
she said, after taking several of these observations. 

“ You make pincushions,” said Charley. 

“ What else do I make ? ” 

“ Penwipers,” said Bradley Headstone. 

“Ha! ha! What else do I make? You’re a school- 
" master, but you can’t tell me.” 

“ You do something,” he returned, pointing to a corner of 
the little bench, “ with straw: but I don’t know what.” 

“ Well done you! ” cried the person of the house. “ I only 
make pincushions and penwipers to use up my waste. But 
my straw really does belong to my business. Try again. 
What do I make with my straw? ” 

“ Dinner-mats.” 

“ A schoolmaster, and says dinner-mats! I’ll give you a 
clue to my trade, in a game of forfeits. I love my love with 
a B because she is Beautiful ; I hate my love with a B because 
she is Brazen; I took her to the sign of the Blue Boar, and 
I treated her with Bonnets; her name’s Bouncer, and she 
lives in Bedlam. — Now, what do I make with my straw? ” 

“ Ladies’ bonnets? ” 

“ Fine ladies’,” said the person of the house, nodding 
assent. “ Dolls’. I’m a dolls’ dressmaker.” 

“ I hope it’s a good business ? ” 

The person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook 
her head. “ No. Poorly paid. And I’m often so pressed 
for time! I had a doll married, last week, and was obliged 
to work all night. And it’s not good for me, on account of 
my back being so bad and my legs so queer.” 

They looked at the little creature with a wonder that did 
not diminish, and the schoolmaster said: “ I am sorry your 
fine ladies are so inconsiderate.” 

“ It’s the way with them,” said the person of the house. 


OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 


249 


shrugging her shoulders again. And they take no care of 
their clothes, and they never keep to the same fashions a 
month. I work for a doll with three daughters. Bless you, 
she’s enough to ruin her husband! ” 

The person of the house gave a weird little laugh here, 
and gave them another look out of the corners of her eyes. 
She had an elfin chin that was capable of great expression, 
and whenever she gave this look, she hitched this chin up. 
As if her eyes and her chin worked together on the same wires 
“ Are you always as busy as you are now ? ” 

Busier. I’m slack just now. I finished a large mourning 
order the day before yesterday. Doll I work for lost a canary- 
bird.” The person of the house gave another little laugh, 
and then nodded her head several times, as who should 
moralise, “ Oh this world, this world! ” 

“ Are you alone all day ? ” asked Bradley Headstone. 

Don’t any of the neighbouring children ?” 

Ah, lud!” cried the person of the house, with a little 
scream, as if the word had pricked her. “ Don’t talk of 
children. I can’t bear children. I know their tricks and 
their manners.” She said this with an angry little shake of 
her right fist close before her eyes. 

Perhaps it scarcely required the teacher-habit to perceive 
that the dolls’ dressmaker was inclined to be bitter on the 
difference between herself and other children. But both 
master and pupil understood it so. 

“ Always running about and screeching, always playing 
and fighting, always skip-skip-skipping on the pavement and 
chalking it for their games! Oh! I know their tricks and 
their manners!” Shaking the little«fist as before. “And 
that’s not all. Ever so often calling names in through a 
person’s keyhole, and imitating a person’s back and legs. 
Oh! I know their tricks and their manners. And I’ll tell 
you what I’d do to punish ’em. There’s doors under the 
church in the Square — black doors, leading into black vaults. 
Well! I’d open one of those doors, and I’d cram ’em all in, 
and then I’d lock the door and through the keyhole I’d 
blow in pepper.” 

“ What would be the good of blowing in pepper? ” asked 
Charley Hexam. 


250 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ To set ’em sneezing,” said the person of the house, “ and 
make their eyes water. And when they were all sneezing 
and inflamed, Fd mock ’em through the keyhole. Just as 
they, with their tricks and their manners, mock a person 
through a person’s keyhole! ” 

An uncommonly emphatic shake of her little fist close 
before her eyes seemed to ease the mind of the person of the 
house; for she added with recovered composure, “ No, no, no. 
No children for me. Give me grown-ups.” 

It was difficult to guess the age of this strange creature, 
for her poor figure furnished no clue to it, and her face was 
at once so young and so old. Twelve, or at the most thirteen, 
might be near the mark. 

” I always did like grown-ups,” she went on, “and always 
kept company with them. So sensible. Sit so quiet. Don’t 
go prancing and capering about! And I mean always to 
keep among none but grown-ups till I marry. I suppose I 
must make up my mind to marry, one of these days.” 

She listened to a step outside that caught her ear, and 
there was a soft knock at the door. Pulling at a handle 
within her reach, she said with a pleased laugh: “ Now here, 
for instance, is a grown-up that’s my particular friend! ” and 
Lizzie Hexam in a black dress entered the room. 

“Charley! You!” 

Taking him to her arms in the old way — of which he 
seemed a little ashamed — she saw no one else. 

“ There, there, there, Liz, all right, my dear. See! Here’s 
Mr. Headstone come with me.” 

Her eyes met those of the schoolmaster, who had evidently 
expected to see a very different sort of person, and a 
murmured word or two of salutation passed between them. 
She was a little flurried by the unexpected visit, and the 
schoolmaster was not at his ease. But he never was, 
quite. 

“ I told Mr. Headstone you were not settled, Liz, but 
he was so kind as to take an interest in coming, and so I 
brought him. How well you look! ” 

Bradley seemed to think so. 

“Ah! Don’t she, don’t she?” cried the person of the 
house, resuming her occupation, though the twilight was 


OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 251 

falling fast. “ I believe you, she does! But go on with your 
chat, one and all: 

‘ You one two three, 

My com-pa-nie, 

And don’t mind me; ’ ” 

— pointing this impromptu rhyme with three points of her 
thin forefinger. 

“ I didn’t expect a visit from you, Charley,” said his sister. 
“ I supposed that if you wanted to see me you would have 
sent to me, appointing me to come somewhere near the 
school, as I did last time. I saw my brother near the school, 
sir,” to Bradley Headstone, ” because it’s easier for me to 
go there, than for him to come here. I work about midway 
between the two places.” 

“ You don’t see much of one another,” said Bradley, not 
improving in respect of ease. 

“ No.” With a rather sad shake of her head. “ Charley 
always does well, Mr. Headstone ? ” 

“ He could not do better. I regard his course as quite 
plain before him.” 

I hoped so. I am so thankful. So well done of you, 
Charley dear! It is better for me not to come (except when 
he wants me) between him and his prospects. You think so, 
Mr. Headstone ? ” 

Conscious that his pupil-teacher was looking for his answer, 
and that he himself had suggested the boy’s keeping aloof 
from this sister, novr seen for the first time face to face, Bradley 
Headstone stammered : 

“ Your brother is very much occupied, you know. He 
has to work hard. One cannot but say that the less his 
attention is diverted from his work, the better for his future. 

When he shall have established himself, why then it 

will be another thing then.” 

Lizzie shook her head again, and returned, with a quiet 
smile: I always advised him as you advise him. Did I 

not, Charley ? ” 

Well, never mind that now,” said the boy. “ How are 
you getting on ? ” 

” Very well, Charley. I want for nothing.” 


252 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“You have your own room here?” 

“ Oh yes. Up-stairs. And it’s quiet, and pleasant, and airy.” 

“ And she always has the use of this room for visitors,” 
said the person of the house, screwing up one of her little 
bony fists, like an opera-glass, and looking through it, with 
her eyes and her chin in that quaint accordance. “Always 
this room for visitors; haven’t you, Lizzie dear? ” 

It happened that Bradley Headstone noticed a very slight 
action of Lizzie Hexam’s hand, as though it checked the 
dolls’ dressmaker. And it happened ’that the latter noticed 
him at the same instant; for she made a double eye-glass of 
her two hands, looked at him through it, and cried, with 
a waggish shake of her head: “Aha! Caught you spying, 
did I?” 

It might have fallen out so, any way; but Bradley Head- 
stone also noticed that immediately after this, Lizzie, who 
had not taken off her bonnet, rather hurriedly proposed that 
a^ the room was getting dark they should go out into the air. 
They went out; the visitors saying good night to the dolls’ 
dressmaker, whom they left, leaning back in her chair with 
her arms crossed, singing to herself in a sweet thoughtful 
little voice. 

“ I’ll saunter on by the river,” said Bradley. “ You will 
be glad to talk together.” 

As his uneasy figure went on before them among the even- 
ing shadows, the boy said to his sister petulantly: 

“ When are you going to settle yourself in some Christian 
sort of place, Liz ? I thought you were going to do it before 
now.” 

“ I am very well where I am, Charley.” 

“ Very well where you are! I am ashamed to have brought 
Mr. Headstone with me. How came you to get into such 
company as that little witch’s ? ” 

“ By chance at first, as it seemed, Charley. But I think 
it must have been by something more than chance, for that 
child You remember the bills upon the walls at home ? ” 

“ Confound the bills upon the walls at home! I want to 
forget the bills upon the walls at home, and it would be better 
for you to do the same,” grumbled the boy. “ Well, what of 
them?” 


OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 


253 


“ This child is the grandchild of the old man.’* 

'' What old man ? ” 

“The terrible drunken old man, in the list slippers and 
the nightcap.” 

The boy asked, rubbing his nose in a manner that half 
expressed vexation at hearing so much, and half curiosity to 
hear more: “How came you to make that out? What a 
girl you are!” 

“ The child’s father is employed by the house that employs 
me ; that’s how I came to know it, Charley. The father is like 
his own father, a weak, wretched, trembling creature, falling 
to pieces, never sober. But a good workman too, at the 
work he does. The mother is dead. This poor ailing little 
creature has come to be what she is, surrounded by drunken 
people from her cradle — if she ever had one, Charley.” 

“ I don’t see what you have to do with her, for all that,” 
said the boy. 

“ Don’t you, Charley ? ” 

The boy looked doggedly at the river. They were at 
Millbank, and the river rolled on their left. His sister gently 
touched him on the shoulder, and pointed to it. 

“Any compensation — restitution — never mind the word 

— you know my meaning. Father’s grave.” 

But he did not respond with any tenderness. After a 
moody silence he broke out in an ill-used tone: 

“ It’ll be a very hard thing, Liz, if, when I am trying my 
best to get up in the world, you pull me back.” 

“I, Charley?” 

“Yes, you, Liz. Why can’t you let bygones be bygones? 
Why can’t you, as Mr. Headstone said to me this very even- 
ing about another matter, leave well alone ? What we have 
got to do is, to turn our faces full in our new direction, and 
keep straight on.” 

“And never look back? Not even to try to make some 
amends ? ” 

“You are such a dreamer,” said the boy, with his former 
petulance. “It was all very well when we sat before the fire 

— when we looked into the hollow down by the flare — but 
we are looking into the real world now.” 

“ Ah, we were looking into the real world then, Charley! ” 


254 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


I understand what you mean by that, but you are not 
justified in it. I don’t want, as I raise myself, to shake you 
off, Liz. I want to carry you up with me. That’s what 
I want to do, and mean to do. I know what I owe you. I 
said to Mr. Headstone this very evening, ‘ After all, my sister 
got me here.’ Well, then. Don’t pull me back, and hold 
me dowm. That’s all I ask, and surely that’s not uncon- 
scionable.” 

She had kept a steadfast look upon him, and she answered 
with composure: * 

“ I am not here selfishly, Charley. To please myself, J 
could not be too far from that river.” 

“ Nor could you be too far from it to please me. Let us 
get quit of it equally. Why should you linger about it any 
more than I ? I give it a wide berth.” 

“ I can’t get away from it, I think,” said Lizzie, passing 
her hand across her forehead. “ It’s no purpose of mine that 
I live by it still.” 

“ There you go, Liz! Dreaming again! You lodge your- 
self of your own accord in a house with a drunken — tailor, 
I suppose — or something of the sort, and a little crooked antic 
of a child, or old person, or whatever it is, and then you 
talk as if you were drawn or driven there. Now do be more 
practical.” 

She had been practical enough with him, in suffering and 
striving for him; but she only laid her hand upon his shoulder 
— not reproachfully — and tapped it twice or thrice. She had 
been used to do so, to soothe him when she carried him about, 
a child as heavy as herself. Tears started to his eyes. 

“ Upon my word, Liz,” drawing the back of his hand 
across them, “ I mean to be a good brother to you, and to 
prove that I know what I owe you. All I say is, that I hope 
you’ll control your fancies a little, on my account. I’ll get 
a school, and then you must come and live with me, and 
you’ll have to control your fancies then, so why not now? 
Now say I haven’t vexed you.” 

“You haven’t, Charley, you haven’t.” 

“ And say I haven’t hurt you.” 

“ You haven’t, Charley.” But this answer was less ready, 

“ Say you are sure I didn’t mean to. Come! There’s IMr. 


OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 


255 


Headstone stopping, and looking over the wall at tlie tide, to 
hint that it’s time to go. Kiss me, and tell me that you know 
I didn’t mean to hurt you,” 

She told him so, and they embraced, and walked on and 
came up with the schoolmaster. 

“ But we go your sister’s way,” he remarked, when the boy 
told him he was ready. And with his cumbrous and uneasy 
action he stiffly offered her his arm. Her hand was just 
within it, when she drew it back. He looked round with 
a start, as if he thought she had detected something that 
repelled her, in the momentary touch. 

“ I will not go in just yet,” said Lizzie. “ And you have 
a distance before you, and will walk faster without me.” 

Being by this time close to Vauxhall Bridge, they resolved, 
in consequence, to take that way over the Thames, and they 
left her; Bradley Headstone giving her his hand at parting, 
and she thanking him for his care of her brother. 

The master and the pupil walked on, rapidly and silently. 
They had nearly crossed the bridge, when a gentleman came 
coolly sauntering towards them, with a cigar in his mouth, 
his coat thrown back, and his hands behind him. Something 
in the careless manner of this person, and in a certain lazily 
arrogant air with which he approached, holding possession of 
twice as much pavement as another would have claimed, 
instantly caught the boy’s attention. As the gentleman 
passed, the boy looked at him narrowly, and then stood still, 
looking after him. 

“ Who is that you stare after? ” asked Bradley. 

“Why!” said the boy, with a confused and pondering 
frown upon his face, “ it is that Wrayburn one! ” 

Bradley Headstone scrutinised the boy as closely as the boy 
had scrutinised the gentleman. 

“ I beg your pardon, Mr. Headstone, but I couldn’t help 
wondering what in the world brought him here! ” 

Though he said it as if his wonder were past — at the same 
time resuming the walk — it was not lost upon the master 
that he looked over his shoulder after speaking, and that the 
same perplexed and pondering frown was heavy on his face. 

“ You don’t appear to like your friend, Hexam? ” 

“ I don’t like him,” said the boy. 


256 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Why not ? ” 

“ He took hold of me by the chin in a precious impertinent 
way, the first time I ever saw him,” said the boy. 

“ Again, why? ” 

“For nothing. Or — it’s much the same — because some- 
thing I happened to say about my sister didn’t happen to 
please him.” 

“Then he knows your sister?” 

“ He didn’t at that time,” said^ the boy, still moodily 
pondering. 

“ Does now ? ” 

The boy had so lost himself that he looked at Mr. Bradley 
Headstone as they walked on side by side, without attempting 
to reply until the question had been repeated; then he nodded, 
and answered, “ Yes, sir.” 

“ Going to see her, I dare say.” 

“ It can’t be! ” said the boy, quickly. “ He doesn’t know 
her well enough. I should like to catch him at it! ” 

When they had walked on for a time, more rapidly than 
before, the master said, clasping the pupil’s arm between the 
elbow and the shoulder with his hand: 

“ You were going to tell me something about that person. 
What did you say his name was? ” 

“ Wrayburn, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn. He is what they 
call a barrister, with nothing to do. The first time he came 
to our old place was when my father was alive. He came 
on business; not that it was his business — he never had any 
business — he was brought by a friend of his.” 

“ And the other times ? ” 

“ There was only one other time that I know of. When 
my father was killed by accident, he chanced to be one of the 
finders. He was mooning about, I suppose, taking liberties 
with people’s chins; but there he was, somehow. He brought 
the news home to my sister early in the morning, and brought 
Miss Abbey Potterson, a neighbour, to help break it to her. 
He was mooning about the house when I was fetched home 
in the afternoon — they didn’t know where to find me till my 
sister could be brought round sufficiently to tell them — and 
then he mooned away.” 

“ And is that all ? ” 


OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 


257 


“ That’s all, sir.” 

Bradley Headstone gradually released the boy’s arm, as if 
he were thoughtful, and they walked on side by side as 
before. After a long silence between them, Bradley resumed 
the talk. 

“ I suppose — your sister ” with a curious break both 

before and after the words, “ has received hardly any teaching, 
Hexam?” 

“ Hardly any, sir.” 

“ Sacrificed, no doubt, to her father’s objections. I remem- 
ber them in your case. Yet — your sister — scarcely looks 
or speaks like an ignorant person.” 

“ Lizzie has as much thought as the best, Mr. Headstone. 
Too much, perhaps, without teaching. I used to call the fire 
at home her books, for she was alw^ays full of fancies — some- 
times quite wise fancies, considering — when she sat looking 
at it.” 

“ I don’t like that,” said Bradley Headstone. 

His pupil was a little surprised by this striking in with so 
sudden and decided and emotional an objection, but took it as 
a proof of the master’s interest in himself. It emboldened 
him to say: 

“ I have never brought myself to mention it openly to you, 
Mr. Headstone, and you’re my witness that I couldn’t even 
make up my mind to take it from you before we came out 
to-night; but it’s a painful thing to think that if I get on 
as well as you hope, I shall be — I won’t say disgraced, be- 
cause I don’t mean disgraced — but — rather put to the blush 
if it was known — by a sister who has been very good to me.” 

“ Yes,” said Bradley Headstone in a slurring way, for his 
mind scarcely seemed to touch that point, so smoothly did it 
glide to another, ‘‘ and there is this possibility to consider. 
Some man who had worked his way might come to admire 
— your sister — and might even in time bring himself to 
think of marrying — your sister — and it would be a sad draw’- 
back and a heavy penalty upon him if, overcoming in his 
mind other inequalities of condition and other considerations 
against it, this inequality and this consideration remained in 
full force.” 

“ That’s much my own meaning, sir.” 


258 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Ay, ay,” said Bradley Headstone, “ but you spoke of 
a mere brother. Now the case I ha-ve supposed would be a 
much stronger case; because an admirer, a husband, would 
form the connection voluntarily, besides being obliged to 
proclaim it: which a brother is not. After all, you know, 
it must be said of you that you couldn’t help yourself: while 
it would be said of him, with equal reason, that he could.” 

“ That’s true, sir. Sometimes, since Lizzie was left free by 
father’s death, I have thought that such a young woman might 
soon acquire more than enough to pass muster. And some- 
times I have even thought that perhaps Miss Peecher ” 

“ For the purpose, I would advise not Miss Peecher,” 
Bradley Headstone struck in with a recurrence of his late 
decision of manner. 

“ Would you be so kind as to think of it for me, Mr. Head- 
stone ? ” 

‘‘Yes, Hexam, yes. Pll think of it. Pll think maturely 
of it. I’ll think well of it.” 

' Their walk was almost a silent one afterwards, until it 
ended at the school-house. There, one of neat Miss Beecher’s 
little windows, like the eyes in needles, was illuminated, and 
in a corner near it sat Mary Anne watching, while Miss 
Peecher at the table stitched at the neat little body she was 
making up by brown paper pattern for her own wearing. 
N.B. Miss Peecher and Miss Peecher’ s pupils were not much 
encouraged in the unscholastic art of needlework by Govern- 
ment. 

Mary xA.nne, with her face to the window, held her arm up. 

“ Well, Mary Anne? ” 

“ Mr. Headstone coming home, ma’am.” 

In about a minute, Mary Anne again hailed. 

“ Yes, Mary Anne? ” 

“ Gone in and locked his door, ma’am.” 

Miss Peecher repressed a sigh as she gathered her work 
together for bed, and transfixed that part of her dress where 
her heart would have been if she had had the dress on, 
with a sharp, sharp needle. 


CHAPTER II 


STILL EDUCATIONAL 

The person of the house, dolls’ dressmaker and manu- 
facturer of ornamental pincushions and penwipers, sat in 
her quaint little low arm-chair, singing in the dark, until 
Lizzie came back. The person of the house had attained 
that dignity while yet of veiy tender years indeed, through 
being the only trustworthy person in the house. 

“ Well, Lizzie-Mizzie-Wizzie,” said she, breaking off in her 
song. ‘‘ What’s the news out of doors ? ” 

“What’s the news in doors?” returned Lizzie, playfully 
smoothing the bright long fair hair which grew very luxu- 
riant and beautiful on the head of the dolls’ dressmaker. 

“ Let me see, said the blind man. Why the last news is, 
that I don’t mean to marry your brother.” 

“ No?” 

“ No-o,” shaking her head and her chin. “ Don’t like 
the boy.” 

“ What do you say to his master? ” 

“ I say that I think he’s bespoke.” 

Lizzie finished putting the hair carefully back over the 
misshapen shoulders, and then lighted a candle. It showed 
the little parlour to be dingy, but orderly and clean. She 
stood it on the mantelshelf, remote from the dressmaker’s 
eyes, and then put the room door open, and the house door 
open, and turned the little low chair and its occupant to- 
wards the outer air. It was a sultry night, and this was a 
fine-weather arrangement when the day’s work was done 
To complete it, she seated herself in a chair by the side of 
the little chair, and protectingly drew under her arm the 
spare hand that crept up to her. 

“ This is what your loving Jenny Wren calls the best 
time in the day and night,” said the person of the house. 


260 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Her real name was Fanny Cleaver; but she had long ago 
chosen to bestow upon herself the appellation of Miss Jenny 
Wren. 

“ I have been thinking/’ Jenny went on, “ as I sat at work 
to-day, what a thing it would be if I should be able to have 
your company till I am married, or at least courted. Because 
when 1 am courted, I shall make Him do some of the things 
that you do for me. He couldn’t brush my hair like you do, 
or help me up and down stairs like you do, and he couldn’t 
do anything like you do; but he could take my work home, and 
he could call for orders in his clumsy way. And he shall 
too. /’ll trot him about, I can tell him! ” 

Jenny Wren had her personal vanities — happily for her — 
and no intentipns were stronger in her breast than the various 
trials, and torments that were, in the fulness of time, to be 
inflieted upon “ him.” 

Wherever he may happen to be just at present, or who- 
ever he may happen to be,” said Miss Wren, I know his 
tricks and his manners, and I give him warning to lookout.” 

Don’t you think you are rather hard upon him? ” asked 
her friend, smiling, and smoothing her hair. 

“Not a bit,” replied the sage Miss Wren, with an air of 
vast experience. “ My dear, they don’t care for you, those 
fellows, if you’re not hard upon ’em. But I was saying If 
I should be able to have your company. Ah 1 What a large 
If! Ain’t it?” 

“ I have no intention of parting company, Jenny.” 

“ Don’t say that, or you’ll go directly.” 

“ Am I so little to be relied upon ? ” 

“ You’re more to be relied upon than silver and gold.” 
As she said it. Miss Wren suddenly broke off, screwed up 
her eyes and her chin, and looked prodigiously knowing. 
“ Aha! 

* Who comes here? 

A Grenadier. 

What does he want? 

A pot of beer.’ 

I 

— And nothing else in the world, my dear! ” 

A man’s figure paused on the pavement at the outer door. 
“ Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, ain’t it?” said Miss Wren. 


STILL EDUCATIONAL 


261 


So I am told,” was the answer. 

You may come in, if you’re good.” 

“I am not good,” said Eugene, “ but I’ll come 
in.” 

He gave his hand to Jenny Wren, and he gave his hand 
to Lizzie, and he stood leaning by the door at Lizzie’s side. 
He had been strolling with his cigar, he said (it was smoked 
out and gone by this time), and he had strolled round to 
return in that direction that he might look in as he passed. 
Had she not seen her brother to-night? 

“ Yes,” said Lizzie, whose manner was a little troubled. 

Gracious condescension on our brother’s part! Mr Eu- 
gene Wrayburn thought he had passed my young gentleman 
on the bridge yonder. Who was his friend with him ? 

“ The schoolmaster.” 

“ To be sure. Looked like it.” 

Lizzie sat so still, that one could not have said wherein 
the fact of her manner being troubled was expressed; and 
yet one could not have doubted it. Eugene was as easy as 
ever; but perhaps as she sat with her eyes cast down, it 
might have been rather more perceptible that his attention 
was concentrated upon her for certain moments, than its 
concentration upon any subject for any short time ever was, 
elsewhere. 

‘‘ I have nothing to report, Lizzie,” said Eugene. “ But 
having promised you that an eye should be always kept 
on Mr. Riderhood through my friend Lightwood, I like 
occasionally to renew my assurance that I keep my promise, 
and keep my friend up to the mark.” 

I should not have doubted it, sir.” 

“ Generally, I confess myself a man to be doubted,” re- 
turned Eugene, coolly, for all that.” 

“ Why are you ? ” asked the sharp Miss Wren. 

“ Because, my dear,” said the airy Eugene, “I am a bad 
idle dog.” 

Then why don’t you reform and be a good dog?” in- 
quired Miss Wren. 

“ Because, my dear,” returned Eugene, “ there’s nobody 
who makes it worth my while. Have you considered my 
suggestion, Lizzie?” This in a lower voice, but only as if 


262 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


it were a graver matter; not at all to the exclusion of the 
person of the house. 

“ I have thought of it, Mr. Wrayburn, but I have not 
been able to make up my mind to accept it.*’ 

“ False pride! ” said Eugene. 

“ I think not, Mr. Wrayburn. I hope not.” 

“ False pride! ” repeated Eugene. ‘‘ Why, what else is it? 
The thing is worth nothing in itself. The thing is worth 
nothing to me. What can it be worth to me? You know 
the most I make of it. I propose to be of some use to some- 
body — which I never was in this world, and never shall 
be on any other occasion — by paying some qualified person 
of your own sex and age, so many (or rather so few) con- 
temptible shillings, to come here, certain nights in the week, 
and give you certain instruction which you wouldn’t want if 
you hadn’t been a self-denying daughter and sister. You 
know that it’s good to have it, or you would never have so 
devoted yourself to your brother’s having it. Then why not 
have it: especially when our friend Miss Jenny here would 
profit by it too ? If I proposed to Fe the teacher, or to at- 
tend the lessons — obviously incongruous! — but as to that 
I might as well be on the other side of the globe, or not on 
the globe at all. Fa-lse pride, Lizzie. Because true pride 
wouldn’t shame, or be ashamed by, your thankless brother. 
True pride wouldn’t have schoolmasters brought here, like 
doctors, to look at a bad case. True pride would go to work 
and do it. You know that, well enough, for you know that 
your own true pride would do it to-morrow if you had the 
ways and means which false pride won’t let me supply. 
Very well. I add no more than this. Your false pride does 
wrong to yourself and does wrong to your dead father.” 

“ How to my father, Mr. Wrayburn? ” she asked, with an 
anxious face. 

“How to your father? Can you ask! By perpetuating 
the consequences of his ignorant and blind obstinacy. By 
resolving not to set right the wrong he did you. By deter- 
mining that the deprivation to which he condemned you, and 
which he forced upon you, shall always rest upon his head.” 

It chanced to be a subtle string to sound, in her who had 
so spoken to her brother within the hour. It sounded far 


STILL EDUCATIONAL 


263 


more forcibly, because of the change in the speaker for the 
moment; the passing appearance of earnestness, complete 
conviction, injured resentment of suspicion, generous and 
unselfish interest. All these qualities, in him usualfy so 
light and careless, she felt to be inseparable from some 
touch of their opposites in her own breast. She thought, 
had she, so far below him and so different, rejected this 
disinterestedness because of some vain misgiving that he 
sought her out, or heeded any personal attractions that he 
might descry in her? The poor girl, pure of heart and 
purpose, could not bear to think it. Sinking before her 
own eyes, as she suspected herself of it, she drooped her 
head as though she had done him some wicked and grievous 
injury, and broke into silent tears. 

“ Don’t be distressed,” said Eugene, very, very kindly. 

I hope it is not I who have distressed you. I meant no 
more than to put the matter in its true light before you; 
though I acknowledge I did it selfishly enough, for I am 
disappointed.” 

Disappointed of doing her a service. How else could he 
be disappointed ? 

“ It won’t break my heart,” laughed Eugene; “ it won’t 
stay by me eight-and-forty hours; but I am genuinely dis- 
appointed. I had set my fancy on doing this little thing 
for you and for our friend Miss Jenny. The novelty of my 
doing anything in the least useful had its charms. I see, 
now, that I might have managed it better. I might have 
affected to do it wholly for our friend Miss J. I might 
have got myself up, morally, as Sir Eugene Bountiful. But 
upon my soul I can’t make flourishes, and I would rather 
be disappointed than try.” 

If he meant to follow home what was in Lizzie’s thoughts, 
it was skilfully done. If he followed it by mere fortuitous 
coincidence, it was done by an evil chance. 

It opened out so naturally before me,” said Eugene 
“The ball seemed so thrown into my hands by accident! 
I happen to be originally brought into contact with you, 
Lizzie, on those two occasions that you know of. I happen 
to be able to promise you that a watch shall be kept upon 
that false accuser, Riderhood. I happen to be able to give 


264 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


you some little consolation in the darkest hour of your dis- 
tress, by assuring you that I don’t believe him. On the 
same occasion I tell you that I am the idlest and least of 
lawyers, but that I am better than none, in a case I have 
noted down with my own hand, and that you may be always 
sure of my best help, and incidentally of Lightwood’s too, 
in your efforts to clear your father. So it gradually takes my 
fancy that I may help you — so easily! — to clear your 
father of that other blame which I mentioned a few minutes 
ago, and which is a just and real one. I hope I have explained 
myself, for I am heartily sorry to have distressed you. I 
hate to claim to mean well, but I really did mean honestly 
and simply well, and I want you to know it.” 

“ I have never doubted that, Mr. Wrayburn,” said Lizzie; 
the more repentant, the less he claimed. 

“ I am very glad to hear it. Though if you had quite 
understood my whole meaning at first, I think you would 
not have refused. Do you think you would ? ” 

“I — I don’t know that I should, Mr. Wraybum.” 

“ Well! Then why refuse now you do understand it? ” 
It’s not easy for me to talk to you,” returned Lizzie, in 
some confusion, “ for you see all the consequences of what 
I say, as soon as I say it.” 

“ Take all the consequences,” laughed Eugene, “ and take 
away my disappointment. Lizzie Hexam, as I truly respect 
you, and as I am your friend and a poor devil of a gentle- 
man, I protest I don’t even now understand why you hesi- 
tate.” 

There was an appearance of openness, trustfulness, un- 
suspecting generosity, in his words and manner, that won 
the poor girl over; and not only won her over, but again 
caused her to feel as though she had been influenced by the 
opposite qualities, with vanity at their head. 

“ I will not hesitate any longer, Mr. Wrayburn. I hope 
you will not think the worse of me for having hesitated at 
all. For myself and for Jenny — you let me answer for you, 
Jenny dear ? ” 

The little creature had been leaning back attentive, with 
her elbows resting on the elbows of her chair, and her chin 
upon her hands. Without changing her attitude, she an- 


STILL EDUCATIONAL 265 

swered “ Yes! ” so suddenly that it rather seemed as if she 
had chopped the monosyllable than spoken it. 

“ For myself and for Jenny, 1 thankfully accept your 
kind offer.” 

“Agreed! Dismissed!” said Eugene, giving Lizzie his 
hand before lightly waving it, as if he waved the whole 
subject away. “ I hope it may not be often that so much 
is made of so little.” 

Then he fell to talking playfully with Jenny Wren. “ I 
think of setting up a doll, Miss Jenny,” he said. 

“ You had better not,” replied the dressmaker. 

“ Why not ? ” 

“ You are sure to break it. All you children do.” 

“ But that makes good for trade, you know, Miss Wren,” 
returned Eugene. “ Much as people’s breaking promises and 
contracts and bargains of all sorts, makes good for my trade.” 

“ I don’t know about that,” Miss Wren retorted; “ but 
you had better by half set up a penwiper, and turn indus- 
trious and use it.” 

“ Why, if we were all as industrious as you, little Busy- 
Body, we should begin to work as soon as we could crawl, 
and there would be a bad thing! ” 

“ Do you mean,” returned the little creature, with a flush 
suffusing her face, “ bad for your backs and your legs? ” 

“ No, no, no,” said Eugene; shocked — to do him justice 
— at the thought of trifling with her infirmity. “ Bad for 
business, bad for business. If we all set to work as soon as 
we could use our hands, it would be all over with the dolls’ 
dressmakers.” 

“There’s something in that,” replied Miss Wren; “you 
have a sort of an idea in your noddle sometimes.” Then, in 
a changed tone: “ Talking of ideas, my Lizzie,” they were 
sitting side by side as they had sat at first, “ I wonder how 
it happens that when I am work, work, working here, all 
alone in the summer-time, I smell flowers.” 

“ As a commonplace individual, I should say,” Eugene 
suggested languidly — for he was growing weary of the per- 
son of the house — “ that you smell flowers because you do 
smell flowers.” 

“ No, I don’t,” said the little creature, resting one arm 


266 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


upon the elbow of her chair, resting her chin upon that 
hand, and looking vacantly before her; “ this is not a flowery 
neighbourhood. It’s anything but that. And yet, as I sit 
at work, I smell miles of flowers. I smell roses till I think 1 
see the rose-leaves lying in heaps, bushels, on the floor. I 
smell fallen leaves till I put down my hand — so — and 
expect to make them rustle. I smell the white and the pink 
May in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that I never was 
among. For I have seen very few flowers indeed, in my life.” 

“ Pleasant fancies to have, Jenny dear! ” said her friend: 
with a glance towards Eugene as if she would have asked 
him whether they were given the child in compensation for 
her losses. 

“ So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the 
birds I hear! Oh!” cried the little creature, holding out 
her hand and looking upward, “ how they sing! ” 

There was something in the face and action for the moment 
quite inspired and beautiful. Then the chin dropped mus- 
ingly upon the hand again. 

“ I dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and 
my flowers smell better than other flowers. For when I was 
a little child,” in a tone as though it were ages ago, “ the 
children that I used to see early in the morning were very 
different from any others that I ever saw. They were not 
like me: they were not chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten; 
they were never in pain. They were not like the children 
of the neighbours; they never made me tremble all over, 
by setting up shrill noises, and they never mocked me. 
Such numbers of them, too! All in white dresses, and with 
something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that 
I have never been able to imitate with my work, though I 
know it so well. They used to come down in long bright 
slanting rows, and say all together, ‘ Who is this in pain ? 
Who is this in pain ? ’ When I told them who it was, they 
answered, ‘ Come and play with us! ’ When I said, ‘ I never 
play! I can’t play! ’ they swept about me and took me up, 
and made me light. Then it was all delicious ease and rest 
till they laid me down, and said all together, ‘ Have patience, 
and we will come again.’ Whenever they came back, I used 
to know they were coming before I saw the long bright rows, 


STILL EDUCATIONAL 


267 


by hearing them ask, all together a long way off, ‘ Who is 
this in pain ? Who is this in pain ? ’ And I used to cry out, 
‘ Oh, my blessed children, it’s poor me! Have pity on me! 
Take me up and make me light! ’ ” 

By degrees, as she progressed in this remembrance, the 
hand was raised, the late ecstatic look returned, and she 
became quite beautiful. Having so paused for a moment, 
silent, with a listening smile upon her face, she looked round 
and recalled herself. 

“ What poor fun you think me; don’t you, Mr. Wray- 
burn? You may well look tired of me. But it’s Saturday 
night, and I won’t detain you.” 

That is to say. Miss Wren,” observed Eugene, quite 
ready to profit by the hint, “ you wish me to go? ” 

“ Well, it’s Saturday night,” she returned, “ and my 
child’s coming home. And my child is a troublesome bad 
child, and costs me a world of scolding. I would rather you 
didn’t see my child.” 

“A doll?” said Eugene, not understanding, and looking 
for an explanation. 

But Lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, 

Her father,” he delayed no longer. He took his leave im- 
mediately. At the corner of the street he stopped to light 
another cigar, and possibly to ask himself what he was 
doing otherwise. If so, the answer was indefinite and vague. 
Who knows what he is doing, who is careless what he does! 

A man stumbled against him as he turned away, who 
mumbled some maudlin apology. Looking after this man, 
Eugene saw him go in at the door by which he himself had 
just come out. 

On the man’s stumbling into the room, Lizzie rose to 
leave it. 

“ Don’t go away. Miss Hexam,” he said in a submissive 
manner, speaking thickly and with difficulty. ‘‘ Don’t fly 
from unfortunate man in shattered state of health. Give 
poor invalid honour of your company. It ain’t — ain’t 
catching.” 

Lizzie murmured that she had something to do in her own 
room, and went away up-stairs. 

“ How’s my Jenny? ” said the man, timidly. “ How’s my 


268 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Jenny Wren, best of children, object dearest affections 
broken-hearted invalid.” 

To which the person of the house, stretching out her arm 
in an attitude of command, replied with irresponsive as- 
perity: “ Go along with you! Go along into your corner! 
Get into your corner directly! ” 

The wretched spectacle made as if he would have offered 
some remonstrance; but not venturing to resist the person 
of the house, thought better of it, and went and sat down 
on a particular chair of disgrace. 

“Oh-h-h!” cried the person of the house, pointing her 
little finger. “ You bad old boy! Oh-h-h you naughty, 
wicked creature! What do you mean by it? ” 

The shaking figure, unnerved and disjointed from head to 
foot, put out its two hands a little way, as making over- 
tures of peace and reconciliation. Abject tears stood in its 
eyes, and stained the blotehed red of its cheeks. The swollen 
lead-coloured under-lip trembled with a shameful whine. 
The whole indecorous threadbare ruin, from the broken 
shoes to the prematurely-gray seanty hair, grovelled. Not 
with any sense worthy to be called a sense, of this dire re- 
versal of the places of parent and ehild, but in a pitiful 
expostulation to be let off from a scolding. 

I know your tricks and your manners,” cried Miss 
Wren. “Z know where you’ve been to!” (which indeed it 
did not require discernment to discover). “ Oh, you dis- 
graceful old chap!” 

The very breathing of the figure was contemptible, as it 
laboured and rattled in that operation, like a blundering 
clock. 

“ Slave, slave, slave, from morning to night,” pursued the 
person of the house, “ and all for this! What do you mean 

There was something in that emphasised ‘‘ What,” which 
absurdly frightened the figure. As often as the person of 
the house worked her way round to it — even as soon as he 
saw that it was coming — he collapsed in an extra degree. 

“ I wish you had been taken up, and locked up,” said the 
person of the house. “ I wish you had been poked into eells 
and black holes, and run over by rats and spiders and beetles. 












STILL EDUCATIONAL 269 

I know their tricks and their manners, and they’d have 
tickled you nicely. Ain’t you ashamed of yourself? ” 

“ Yes, my dear,” stammered the father. 

“ Then,” said the person of the house, terrifying him by 
a grand muster of her spirits and forces before recurring to 
the emphatic word, “ what do you mean by it? ” 

“ Circumstances over which had no control,” was the 
miserable creature’s plea in extenuation. 

“ /’ll circumstance you and control you too,” retorted the 
person of the house, speaking with vehement sharpness, “ if 
you talk in that way. I’ll give you in charge to the police, 
and have you fined five shillings when you can’t pay, and 
then I won’t pay the money for you, and you’ll be trans- 
ported for life. How should you like to be transported for 
life ? ” 

“ Shouldn’t like it. Poor shattered invalid. Trouble 
nobody long,” cried the wretched figure. 

“ Come, come! ” said the person of the house, tapping the 
table near her in a business-like manner, and shaking her 
head and her chin; “you know what you’ve got to do. 
Put down your money this instant.” 

The obedient figure began to rummage in its pockets. 

“Spent a fortune out of your wages, Pll be bound!” 
said the person of the house. “ Put it here! All you’ve 
got left! Every farthing! ” 

Such a business as he made of collecting it from his dog’s- 
eared pockets; of expecting it in this pocket, and not finding 
it; of not expecting it in that pocket, and passing it over; 
of finding no pocket where that other pocket ought to be! 

“ Is this all? ” demanded the person of the house, when a 
confused heap of pence and shillings lay on the table. 

“ Got no more,” was the rueful answer, with an accordant 
shake of the head. 

“ Let me make sure. You know what you’ve got to do. 
Turn all your pockets inside out, and leave ’em so ! ” cried 
the person of the house. 

He obeyed. And if anything could have made him look 
more abject or more dismally ridiculous than before, it 
would have been his so displaying himself. 

“ Here’s but seven and eightpence halfpenny! ” exclaimed 


270 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Miss Wren, after reducing the heap to order. Oh, you 
prodigal old son! Now you shall be starved.” 

“ No, don’t starve me,” he urged, whimpering. 

“ If you were treated as you ought to be,” said Miss Wren, 
“ you’d be fed upon the skewers of cats’ meat; only the 
skewers, after the cats had had the meat. As it is, go to bed.” 

When he stumbled out of the corner to comply, he again 
put out both his hands, and pleaded: “ Circumstances over 
which no control ” 

“ Get along with you to bed! ” cried Miss Wren, snapping 
him up. “ Don’t speak to me. I’m not going to forgive 
you. Go to bed this moment! ” 

Seeing another emphatic “ What ” upon its way, he evaded 
it by complying, and was heard to shuffle heavily up-stairs, 
and shut his door, and throw himself on his bed. Within 
a little while afterwards, Lizzie came down. 

“ Shall we have our supper, Jenny dear? ” 

“Ah! bless us and save us, we need have something 
to keep us going,” returned Miss Jenny, shrugging her 
shoulders. 

Lizzie laid a cloth upon the little bench (more handy for 
the person of the house than an ordinary table), and put 
upon it such plain fare as they were accustomed to have, 
and drew up a stool for herself. 

“ Now for supper! What are you thinking of, Jenny 
darling? ” 

“ I was thinking,” she returned, coming out of a deep 
study, “ what I would do to Him, if he should turn out 
a drunkard.” 

“ Oh, but he won’t,” said Lizzie. “ You’ll take care of 
that, beforehand.” 

“ I shall try to take care of it beforehand, but he might 
deceive me. Oh, my dear, all those fellows with their tricks 
and their manners do deceive!” With the little fist in full 
action. “ And if so, I tell you what I think I’d do. When 
he was asleep. I’d make a spoon red hot, and I’d have some 
boiling liquor bubbling in a saucepan, and I’d take it out 
hissing, and I’d open his mouth with the other hand — or 
perhaps he’d sleep with his mouth ready open — and I’d pour 
it down his throat, and blister it and choke him.” 


STILL EDUCATIONAL 271 

“ T am sure you would do no such horrible thing,” said 
Lizzie. 

“Shouldn’t I? Well; perhaps I shouldn’t. But I should 
like to! ” 

“ I am equally sure you would not.” 

“ Not even like to? Well, you generally know best. 
Only you haven’t always lived among it as I have lived — 
and your back isn’t bad and your legs are not queer.” 

As they went on with their supper, Lizzie tried to bring 
her round to that prettier and better state. But the charm 
was broken. The person of the house was the person of a 
house full of sordid shames and cares, with an upper room 
in which that abased figure was infecting even innocent sleep 
with sensual brutality and degradation. The dolls’ dress- 
maker had become a little quaint shrew; of the world, 
worldly; of the earth, earthy. 

Poor dolls’ dressmaker! How often so dragged down by 
hands that should have raised her up ; how often so mis- 
directed when losing her way on the eternal road, and asking 
guidance! Poor, poor, little dolls’ dressmaker! 


CHAPTER III 


A PIECE OF WORK 

Britannia, sitting meditating one fine day (perhaps in the 
attitude in which she is presented on the copper coinage), 
discovers all of a sudden that she wants Veneering in Parlia- 
ment. It occurs to her that Veneering is a “ representative 
man — which cannot in these times be doubted — and that 
Her Majesty’s faithful Commons are incomplete without 
him. So Britannia mentions to a legal gentleman of her 
acquaintance that if Veneering will “ put down ” five thou- 
sand pounds, he may write a couple of initial letters after 
his name at the extremely cheap rate of two thousand five 
hundred per letter. It is clearly understand between Bri- 
tannia and the legal gentleman that nobody is to take up 
the five thousand pounds, but that being put down they 
will disappear by magical conjuration and enchantment. 

The legal gentleman in Britannia’s confidence going straight 
from that lady to Veneering, thus commissioned. Veneering 
declares himself highly flattered, but requires breathing time 
to ascertain “ whether his friends will rally round him.” 
Above all things, he says, it behoves him to be clear, at a 
crisis of this importance, “ whether his friends will rally round 
him.” The legal gentleman, in the interests of his client, 
cannot allow much time for this purpose, as the lady rather 
thinks she knows somebody prepared to put down six thou- 
sand pounds; but he says he will give Veneering four hours. 

Veneering then says to Mrs. Veneering, “ We must work,” 
and throws himself into a Hansom cab. Mrs. Veneering in 
the same moment relinquishes baby to Nurse; presses her 
aquiline hands upon her brow, to arrange the throbbing 
intellect within; orders out the carriage; and repeats in a 
distracted and devoted manner, compounded of Ophelia and 


A PIECE OF WORK 273 

any self-immolating female of antiquity you may prefer, 
“ We must work.’* 

Veneering having instructed his driver to charge at the 
Public in the streets, like the Life Guards at Waterloo, is 
driven furiously to Duke Street, St. James’s. There, he 
finds Twemlow in his lodgings, fresh from the hands of a 
secret artist who has been doing something to his hair with 
yolks of eggs. The process requiring that Twemlow shall, 
for two hours after the application, allow his hair to stick 
upright and dry gradually, he is in an appropriate state for 
the receipt of startling intelligence; looking equally like 
the Monument on Fish Street Hill, and King Priam on a 
certain incendiary occasion not wholly unknown as a neat 
point from the classics. 

“ My dear Twemlow,” says Veneering, grasping both his 
hands, “ as the dearest and oldest of my friends ” 

(“ Then there can be no more doubt about it in future,” 
thinks Twemlow, “ and I am! ”) 

** — Are you of opinion that your cousin. Lord Snigs- 
worth, would give his name as a Member of my Committee ? 
I don’t go so far as to ask for his lordship; I only ask for 
his name. Do you think he would give me his name ? ” 

In sudden low spirits, Twemlow replies, “ I don’t think 
he would.” 

“ My political opinions,” says Veneering, not previously 
aware of having any, “ are identical with those of Lord 
Snigsworth, and perhaps as a matter of public feeling and 
public principle. Lord Snigsworth would give me his name.” 

“ It might be so,” says Twemlow; “ but ” And per- 

plexedly scratching his head, forgetful of the yolks of eggs, 
is the more discomfited by being reminded how sticky he is. 

“ Between such old and intimate friends as ourselves,” 
pursues Veneering, ‘‘ there should in such a case be no 
reserve. Promise me that if I ask you to do anything for 
me which you don’t like to do, or feel the slightest difficulty 
in doing, you will freely tell me so.” 

This, Twemlow is so kind as to promise, with every appear- 
ance of most heartily intending to keep his word. 

“ Would you have any objection to write down to Snigs- 
worthy Park, and ask this favour of Lord Snigsworth ? Of 


274 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


course if rt were granted I should know that I owed it solely 
to you; while at the same time you would put it to Lord 
Snigsworth entirely upon public grounds. Would you have 
any objection ? 

Says Twemlow, with his hand to his forehead, You have 
exacted a promise from me.” 

“ I have, my dear Twemlow.” 

“And you expect me to keep it honourably.” 

“ I do, my dear Twemlow.” 

On the whole then; — observe me,” urges Twemlow 
with great nicety, as if, in the case of its having been off the 
whole, he would have done it directly — “ on the whole, 
I must beg you to excuse me from addressing any communi- 
cation to Lord Snigsworth.” 

“Bless you, bless you!” says Veneering; horribly dis- 
appointed, but grasping him by both hands again, in a par- 
ticularly fervent manner. 

It is not to be wondered at that poor Twemlow should 
decline to inflict a letter on his noble cousin (who has gout 
in the temper), inasmuch as his noble cousin, who allows 
him a small annuity on which he lives, takes it out of him, 
as the phrase goes, in extreme severity; putting him, when 
he visits at Snigsworthy Park, under a kind of martial law; 
ordaining that he shall hang his hat on a particular peg, sit 
on a particular chair, talk on particular subjects to particular 
people, and perform particular exercises; such as sounding 
the praises of the Family Varnish (not to say Pictures), and 
abstaining from the choicest of the Family Wines unless 
expressly invited to partake. 

“ One thing, however, I can do for you,” says Twemlow; 
“ and that is, work for you.” 

Veneering blesses him again. 

“ Fll go,” says Twemlow, in a rising hurry of spirits, “ to 
the club; — let us see now; what o’clock is it? ” 

“ Twenty minutes to eleven.” 

“ I’ll be,” says Twemlow, “ at the club by ten minutes to 
twelve, and I’ll never leave it all day.” 

Veneering feels that his friends are rallying round him, 
and says, “ Thank you, thank you. I knew I could rely 
upon you. I said to Anastatia before leaving home just 


A PIECE OF WORK 


275 


now to come to you — of course the first friend I have seen 
on a subject so momentous to me, my dear Twemlow — I said 
to Anastatia, ‘ We must work/ ” 

“You were right, you were right,'* replies Twemlow. 
“ Tell me. Is she working? " 

“ She is,” says Veneering. 

“ Good!” cries Twemlow, polite little gentleman that he 
is. “ A woman’s tact is invaluable. To have the dear sex 
with us, is to have everything with us.” 

“But you have not imparted to me,” remarks Veneer- 
ing, “ what you think of my entering the House of Com- 
mons ? ” 

“ I think,” rejoins Twemlow, feelingly, “ that it is the best 
club in London.” 

Veneering again blesses him, plunges down-stairs, rushes 
into his Hansom, and directs the driver to be up and at the 
British Public, and to charge into the City. 

Meanwhile Twemlow, in an increasing hurry of spirits, 
gets his hair down as well as he can — which is not very well; 
for after these glutinous applications it is restive, and has a 
surface on it somewhat in the nature of pastry — and gets to 
the club by the appointed time. At the club he promptly 
secures a large window, writing materials, and all the news- 
papers, and establishes himself, immovable, to be respect- 
fully contemplated by Pall Mall. Sometimes, when a man 
enters who nods to him, Twemlow says, “ Do you know 
Veneering?” Man says, “No; member of the club?” 
Twemlow says, “ Yes. Coming in for Pocket-Breaches.” 
Man says, “Ah! Hope he may find it worth the money!” 
yawns, and saunters out. Towards six o’clock of the after- 
noon, Twemlow begins to persuade himself that he is posi- 
tively j0,ded with work, and thinks it much to be regretted 
that he was not brought up as a Parliamentary agent. 

From Twemlow’s, Veneering dashes to Podsnap’s place of 
business. Finds Podsnap reading the paper, standing, and 
inclined to be oratorical over the astonishing discovery he has 
made, that Italy is not England. Respectfully entreats Pod- 
snap’s pardon for stopping the flow of his words of wisdom, 
and informs him what is in the wind. Tells Podsnap that 
their political opinions are identical. Gives Podsnap to 


276 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


understand that he, Veneering, formed his political opinions 
while sitting at the feet of him, Podsnap. Seeks earnestly 
to know whether Podsnap “ will rally round him? ” 

Says Podsnap, something sternly, “ Now, first of all, 
Veneering, do you ask my advice ? ” 

Veneering falters that as so old and so dear a friend 

“ Yes, yes, that’s all very well,” says Podsnap; “ but have 
you made up your mind to take this borough of Pocket- 
Breaches on its own terms, or do you ask my opinion whether 
you shall take it or leave it alone ? ” 

Veneering repeats that his heart’s desire and his soul’s 
thirst are that Podsnap shall rally round him. 

“ Now I’ll be plain with you. Veneering,” says Podsnap, 
knitting his brows. “ You will infer that I don’t care about 
Parliament, from the fact of my not being there ? ” 

Why, of course Veneering knows that! Of course Veneering 
knows that if Podsnap chose to go there, he would be there, 

. in a space of time that might be stated by the light and 
thoughtless as a jiffy. 

“ It is not worth my while,” pursues Podsnap, becoming 
handsomely mollified, “ and it is the reverse of important to 
my position. But it is not my wish to set myself up as law 
for another man, differently situated. You think it is worth 
your while, and is important to your position. Is that so ? ” 
Always with the proviso that Podsnap will rally round 
him. Veneering thinks it is so. 

“ Then you don’t ask my advice,” says Podsnap. Good. 
Then I won’t give it you. But you do ask my help. Good. 
Then I’ll work for you.” 

Veneering instantly blesses him, and apprises him that 
Twemlow is already working. Podsnap does not quite 
approve that anybody should be already working — regard- 
ing it rather in the light of a liberty — but tolerates Twemlow, 
and says he is a well-connected old female who will do no 
harm. 

“ I have nothing very particular to do to-day,” adds Pod- 
snap, and I’ll mix with some influential people. I had 
engaged myself to dinner, but I’ll send Mrs. Podsnap and 
get off going myself, and I’ll dine with you at eight. It’s 
important we should report progress and compare notes. 


A PIECE OF WORK 277 

Now, let me see. You ought to have a couple of active 
energetic fellows, of gentlemanly manners, to go about.” 

Veneering, after cogitation, thinks of Boots and Brewer. 

“ Whom I have met at your house,” says Podsnap. “ Yes. 
They’ll do very well. Let them each have a cab, and go 
about.” 

Veneering immediately mentions what a blessing he feels 
it, to possess a friend capable of such grand administrative 
suggestions, and really is elated at this going about of Boots 
and Brewer, as an idea wearing an electioneering aspect 
and looking desperately like business. Leaving Podsnap, at 
a hand-gallop, he descends upon Boots and Brewer, who 
enthusiastically rally round him by at once bolting off in 
cabs, taking opposite directions. Then Veneering repairs to 
the legal gentleman in Britannia’s confidence, and with him 
transacts some delicate affairs of business, and issues an 
address to the independent electors of Pocket-Breaches, 
announcing that he is coming among them for their suffrages, 
as the mariner returns to the home of his early childhood: 
a phrase which is none the worse for his never having been 
near the place in his life, and not even now distinctly knowing 
where it is. 

Mrs. Veneering, during the same eventful hours, is not 
idle. No sooner does the carriage turn out, all complete, 
than she turns into it, all complete, and gives the word, 
“ To Lady Tippins’s.” That charmer dwells over a stay- 
maker’s in the Belgravian Borders, with a life-size model in 
the window on the ground floor, of a distinguished beauty in 
a blue petticoat, stay-lace in hand, looking over her shoulder 
at the town in innocent surprise. As well she may, to find 
herself dressing under the circumstances. 

Lady Tippins at home? Lady Tippins at home, with the 
room darkened, and her back (like the lady’s at the ground- 
floor window, though for a different reason) cunningly turned 
towards the light. Lady Tippins is so surprised by seeing 
her dear Mrs. Veneering so early — in the middle of the night, 
the pretty creature calls it — that her eyelids almost go up, 
under the influence of that emotion. 

To whom Mrs. Veneering incoherently communicates, how 
that Veneering has been offered Pocket-Breaches; how that 


278 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


it is the time for rallying round; how that Veneering has 
said, “We must work; ” how that she is here, as a wife and 
mother, to entreat Lady Tippins to work; how that the 
carriage is at Lady Tippins’s disposal for purposes of work; 
how that she, proprietress of said bran-new elegant equipage, 
will return home on foot — on bleeding feet if need be — to 
work (not specifying how), until she drops by the side of 
baby’s crib. 

“ My love,” says Lady Tippins, “ compose yourself; we’ll 
bring him in.” And Lady Tippins really does work, and 
work the Veneering horses too; for she clatters about town 
all day, calling upon everybody she knows, and showing her 
entertaining powers and green fan to immense advantage, by 
rattling on with. My dear soul, what do you think? What 
do you suppose me to be? You’ll never guess. I’m pretend- 
ing to be an electioneering agent. And for what place of all 
places? Pocket-Breaches. And why? Because the dearest 
friend I have in the world has bought it. And who is the 
dearest friend I have in the world ? A man of the name of 
Veneering. Not omitting his wife, who is the other dearest 
friend I have in the world; and I positively declare I forgot 
their baby, who is the other. And we are carrying on this 
little farce to keep up appearances, and isn’t it refreshing! 
Then, my precious child, the fun of it is that nobody knows 
who these Veneerings are, and that they know nobody, and 
that they have a house out of the Tales of the Genii, and 
give dinners out of the Arabian Nights. Curious to see ’em, 
my dear? Say you’ll know ’em. Come and dine with ’em. 
They shan’t bore you. Say who shall meet you. We’ll make 
up a party of our own, and I’ll engage that they shall not 
interfere with you for one single moment. You really ought 
to see their gold and silver camels. I call their dinner-table, 
the Caravan. Do come and dine with my Veneerings, my 
own Veneerings, my exclusive property, the dearest friends 
I have in the world! And above all, my dear, be sure you 
promise me your vote and interest and all sorts of plumpers 
for Pocket-Breaches; for we couldn’t think of spending six- 
pence on it, my love, and can only consent to be brought in 
by the spontaneous thingummies of the incorruptible what- 
doyoucallums. 


A PIECE OF WORK 


279 


Now the point of view seized by the bewitching Tippins, 
that this same working and rallying round is to keep up 
appearances, may have something in it, but not all the truth. 
More is done, or considered to be done — which does as well 
— by taking cabs, and “ going about,” than the fair Tippins 
knew of. Many vast vague reputations have been made, 
solely by taking cabs and going about. This particularly 
obtains in all Parliamentary affairs. Whether the business 
in hand be to get a man in, or get a man out, or get a man 
over, or promote a railway, or jockey a railway, or what else, 
nothing is understood to be so effectual as scouring nowhere 
in a violent hurry — in short, as taking cabs and going about. 

Probably because this reason is in the air, Twemlow, far 
from being singular in his persuasion that he works like 
a Trojan, is capped by Podsnap, who in his turn is capped 
by Boots and Brewer. At eight o’clock, when all these hard 
workers assemble to dine at Veneering’ s, it is understood 
that the cabs of Boots and Brewer mustn’t leave the door, 
but that pails of water must be brought from the nearest 
baiting-place, and cast over the horses’ legs on the very spot, 
lest Boots and Brewer should have instant occasion to mount 
and away. Those fleet messengers require the Analytical to 
see that their hats are deposited where they can be laid hold 
of at an instant’s notice; and they dine (remarkably well 
though) with the air of firemen in charge of an engine, ex- 
pecting intelligence of some tremendous conflagration. 

Mrs. Veneering faintly remarks, as dinner opens, that 
many such days would be too much for her. 

“ Many such days would be too much for all of us,” says 
Podsnap; “ but we’ll bring him in! ” 

“We’ll bring him in!” says Lady Tippins, sportively 
waving her green fan. “ Veneering for ever! ” 

“ We’ll bring him in! ” says Twemlow. 

“ We’ll bring him in! ” say Boots and Brewer. 

Strictly speaking, it would be hard to show cause why they 
should not bring him in, Pocket-Breaches having closed its 
little bargain, and there being no opposition. However, it is 
agreed that they must “ work ” to the last, and that if they 
did not work, something indefinite would happen. It is 
likewise agreed that they are all so exhausted with the work 


280 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 

behind them, and need to be so fortified for the work before 
them, as to require peculiar strengthening from Veneering' s 
cellar. Therefore, the Analytical has orders to produce the 
cream of the cream of his bins, and therefore it falls out 
that rallying becomes rather a trying word for the occasion; 
Lady Tippins being observed gamely to inculcate the neces- 
sity of rearing round their dear Veneering; Podsnap advo- 
cating roaring round him; Boots and Brewer declaring their 
intention of reeling round him; and Veneering thanking his 
devoted friends one and all, with great emotion, for rarulla- 
rulling round him. 

In these inspiring moments. Brewer strikes out an idea 
which is the great hit of the day. He consults his watch, 
and says (like Guy Fawkes), he’ll now go down to the House 
of Commons and see how things look. 

“ I’ll keep about the lobby for an hour or so,” says Brewer, 
with a deeply mysterious countenance, “ and if things look 
well, I won’t come back, but will order my cab for nine in 
the morning.” 

“ You couldn’t do better,” says Podsnap. 

Veneering expresses his inability ever to acknowledge this 
last service. Tears stand in Mrs. Veneering’s affectionate 
eyes. Boots shows envy, loses ground, and is regarded as 
possessing a second-rate mind. They all crowd to the door 
to see Brewer off. Brewer says to his driver, “ Now, is your 
horse pretty fresh ? ” eyeing the animal with critical scrutiny. 
Driver says he’s as fresh as butter. “ Put him along then,” 
says Brewer; “ House of Commons.” Driver darts up. 
Brewer leaps in, they cheer him as he departs, and IMr. 
Podsnap says, “ Mark my words, sir. That’s a man of 
resource; that’s a man to make his way in life.” 

When the time comes for Veneering to deliver a neat and 
appropriate stammer to the men of Pocket-Breaches, only 
Podsnap and Twemlow accompany him by railway to that 
sequestered spot. The legal gentleman is at the Pocket- 
Breaches Branch Station, with an open carriage with a 
printed bill, “ Veneering for ever! ” stuck upon it, as if it 
were a wall; and they gloriously proceed, amidst the grins 
of the populace, to a feeble littl§ town hall on crutches, with 
some onions and bootlaces under it, which the legal gentle- 


A PIECE OF WORK 


281 


man says are a Market; and from the front window of that 
edifice. Veneering speaks to the listening earth. In the 
moment of his taking his hat off, Podsnap, as per agreement 
made with Mrs. Veneering, telegraphs to that wife and 
mother, “ He’s up.” 

Veneering loses his way in the usual No Thoroughfares of 
speech, and Podsnap and Twemlow say Hear hear! and 
sometimes, when he can’t by any means back himself out 
of some very unlucky No Thoroughfare, “He-a-a-r He-a-a-r! ” 
with an air of facetious conviction, as if the ingenuity of 
the thing gave them a sensation of exquisite pleasure. But 
Veneering makes two remarkably good points; so good, that 
they are supposed to have been suggested to him by the 
legal gentleman in Britannia’s confidence, while briefly con- 
ferring on the stairs. 

Point the first is this. Veneering institutes an original 
comparison between the country and a ship; pointedly 
calling the ship, the Vessel of the State, and the Minister 
the Man at the Helm. Veneering’s object is to let Pocket- 
Breaches know that his friend on his right (Podsnap) is 
a man of wealth. Consequently says he, “ And, gentlemen, 
when the timbers of the Vessel of the State are unsound 
and the Man at the Helm is unskilful, would those great 
Marine Insurers, who rank among our world-famed merchant- 
princes — would they insure her, gentlemen ? Would th^ 
undenvrite her? Would they incur a risk in her? Would 
they have confidence in her ? Why, gentlemen, if I appealed 
to my honourable friend upon my right, himself among the 
greatest and most respected of that great and much respected 
class, he would answer No! ” 

Point the second is this. The telling fact that Twemlow 
is related to Lord Snigs worth, must be let off. Veneering 
supposes a state of public affairs that probably never could 
by any possibility exist (though this is not quite certain, in 
consequence of his picture being unintelligible to himself 
and everybody else), and thus proceeds. “ Why, gentlemen, 
if I were to indicate such a programme to any class of society, 
I say it would be received with derision, would be pointed 
at by the finger of scorn. If I indicated such a programme 
to any worthy and intelligent tradesman of your town — 


282 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 

nay, I will here be personal, and say Our town — what would 
he reply? He would reply, ‘Away with it!’ That’s what 
he would reply, gentlemen. In his honest indignation he 
would reply, ‘ Away with it! ’ But suppose I mounted higher 
in the social scale. Suppose I drew my arm through the arm 
of my respected friend upon my left, and, walking with him 
through the ancestral woods of his family, and under the 
spreading beeches of Snigsworthy Park, approached the noble 
hall, crossed the courtyard, entered by the door, went up the 
staircase, and, passing from room to room, found myself at 
last in the august presence of my friend’s near kinsman. Lord 
Snigsworth. And suppose I said to that venerable earl, 
‘ My Lord, I am here before your lordship, presented by 
your lordship’s near kinsman, my friend upon my left, to 
indicate that programme;’ what would his lordship answer? 
Why, he would answer, ‘ Away with it! ’ That’s what he 
would answer, gentlemen. ‘Away with it!’ Unconsciously 
using, in his exalted sphere, the exact language of the worthy 
and intelligent tradesman of our town, the near and dear 
kinsman of my friend upon my left would answer in his 
wrath, ‘ Away with it! ’ ” 

Veneering finishes with this last success, and Mr. Podsnap 
telegraphs to Mrs. Veneering, “ He’s down.” 

Then dinner is had at the Hotel with the legal gentle- 
man, and then there are in due succession, nomination and 
declaration. Finally Mr. Podsnap telegraphs to Mrs. Veneer- 
ing, “ We have brought him in.” 

Another gorgeous dinner awaits them on their return to 
the Veneering halls, and Lady Tippins awaits them, and 
Boots and Brewer await them. There is a modest assertion on 
everybody’s part that everybody single-handed “ brought him 
in;” but in the main it is conceded by all, that that stroke 
of business on Brewer’s part, in going down to the House 
that night to see how things looked, was the master-stroke. 

A touching little incident is related by Mrs. Veneering, in 
the course of the evening. Mrs. Veneering is habitually 
disposed to be tearful, and has an extra disposition that way 
after her late excitement. Previous to withdrawing from 
the dinner-table with Lady Tippins, she says, in a pathetic 
and physically weak manner: 








A 


A PIECE OF WORK 


283 


You will all think it foolish of me, I know, but I must 
mention it. As I sat by Baby’s crib on the night before the 
election, Baby was very uneasy in her sleep.” 

The Analytical chemist, who is gloomily looking on, has 
diabolical impulses to suggest “ Wind ” and throw up his 
situation; but represses them. 

“ After an interval almost convulsive. Baby curled her 
little hands in one another and smiled.” 

Mrs. Veneering stopping here, Mr. Podsnap deems it 
incumbent on him to say: “ I wonder why I ” 

“ Could it be, I asked myself,” says Mrs. Veneering, 
looking about her for her pocket-handkerchief, “ that the 
Fairies were telling Baby that her papa would shortly be 
an M.P.?” 

So overcome by the sentiment is Mrs. Veneering, that 
they all get up to make a clear stage for Veneering, who 
goes round the table to the rescue, and bears her out back- 
ward, with her feet impressively scraping the carpet: after 
remarking that her work has been too much for her strength. 
Whether the fairies made any mention of the five thousand 
pounds, and it disagreed with Baby, is not speculated upon. 

Poor little Twemlow, quite done up, is touched, and still 
continues touched after he is safely housed over the livery- 
stable yard in Duke Street, Saint James’s. But there, upon 
his sofa, a tremendous consideration breaks in upon the mild 
gentleman, putting all softer considerations to the rout. 

“ Gracious heavens! Now I have time to think of it, he 
never saw one of his constituents in all his days, until we 
saw them together! ” 

After having paced the room in distress of mind, with his 
hand to his forehead, the innocent Twemlow returns to his 
sofa and moans: 

“ I shall either go distracted, or die, of this man. He 
comes upon me too late in life. I am not strong enough 
to bear him 1 ” 


CHAPTER IV 


CUPID PROMPTED 

To use the cold language of the world, Mrs. Alfred Lam- 
mle rapidly improved the acquaintance of Miss Podsnap. To 
use the warm language of Mrs. Lammle, she and her sweet 
Georgiana soon became one: in heart, in mind, in sentiment, 
in soul. 

Whenever Georgiana could escape from the thraldom of 
Podsnappery; could throw off the bedclothes of the custard- 
coloured phaeton, and get up; could shrink out of the range 
of her mother’s rocking, and (so to speak) rescue her poor 
little frosty toes from being rocked over; she repaired to her 
friend, Mrs. Alfred Lammle. Mrs. Podsnap by no means 
objected. As a consciously “ splendid woman,” accustomed 
to overhear herself so denominated by elderly osteologists 
pursuing their studies in dinner society, Mrs. Podsnap could 
dispense with her daughter, Mr. Podsnap, for his part, on 
being informed where Georgiana was, swelled with patronage 
of the Lammles. That they, when unable to lay hold of 
him, should respectfully grasp at the hem of his mantle; 
that they, when they could not bask in the glory of him the 
sun, should take up with the pale reflected light of the watery 
young moon his daughter, appeared quite natural, becoming, 
and proper. It gave him a better opinion of the discretion 
of the Lammles than he had heretofore held, as showing that 
they appreciated the value of the connection. So, Georgiana 
repairing to her friend, Mr. Podsnap went out to dinner, 
and to dinner, and yet to dinner, arm-in-arm with Mrs. 
Podsnap; settling his obstinate head in his cravat and shirt- 
collar, much as if he were performing on the Pandean pipes, 
in his own honour, the triumphal march. See the conquering 
Podsnap comes, Sound the trumpets, beat the drums! 


CUPID PROMPTED 


285 


It was a trait in Mr. Podsnap’s character (and in one form 
or other it will be generally seen to pervade the depths and 
shallows of Podsnappery), that he could not endure a hint of 
disparagement of any friend or acquaintance of his. How 
dare you? ” he would seem to say, in such a case. “ What 
do you mean? I have licensed this person. This person 
has taken out my certificate. Through this person you 
strike at me, Podsnap the Great. And it is not that I 
particularly care for the person’s dignity, but that I do most 
particularly care for Podsnap’s.” Hence, if any one in his 
presence had presumed to doubt the responsibility of the 
Lammles, he would have been mightily huffed. Not that 
any one did, for Veneering, M.P., was always the authority 
for their being very rich, and perhaps believed it. As indeed 
he might, if he chose, for anything he knew of the matter. 

Mr. and Mrs. Lammle’s house in Sackville Street, Picca- 
dilly, was but a temporary residence. It had done well 
enough, they informed their friends, for Mr. Lammle when 
a bachelor, but it would not do now. So they were always 
looking at palatial residences in the best situations, and 
always very nearly taking or buying one, but never quite 
concluding the bargain. Hereby they made for themselves 
a shining little reputation apart. People said, on seeing a 
vacant palatial residence, “ The very thing for the Lammles ! ” 
and wrote to the Lammles about it, and the Lammles always 
went to look at it, but unfortunately it never exactly answered. 
In short, they suffered so many disappointments, that they 
began to think it would be necessary to build a palatial 
residence. And hereby they made another shining reputa- 
tion ; many persons of their acquaintance becoming by 
anticipation dissatisfied with their own houses, and envious 
of the non-existent Lammle structure. 

The handsome fittings and furnishings of the house in 
Sackville Street were piled thick and high over the skeleton 
up-stairs, and if it ever whispered from under its load of 
upholstery, “ Here I am in the closet! ” it was to very few 
ears, and certainly never to Miss Podsnap’s. What Miss 
Podsnap was particularly charmed with, next to the graces 
of her friend, was the happiness of her friend’s married life. 
This was frequently their theme of conversation. 


286 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I am sure/’ said Miss Podsnap, “ Mr. Lammle is like a 
lover. At least I — I should think he was.” 

“ Georgiana, darling! ” said Mrs. Lammle, holding up a 
forefinger. “Take care!” 

“ Oh my goodness me! ” exclaimed Miss Podsnap, redden- 
ing. “What have I said now?” 

“Alfred, you know,” hinted Mrs. Lammle, playfully shak- 
ing her head. “ You were never to say Mr. Lammle any 
more, Georgiana.” 

“ Oh! Alfred, then. I am glad it’s no worse. I was afraid 
I had said something shocking. I am always saying some- 
thing wrong to ma.” 

“To me, Georgiana dearest?” 

“ No, not to you; you are not ma. I wish you were.” 

Mrs. Lammle bestowed a sweet and loving smile upon her 
friend, which Miss Podsnap returned as she best could. 
They sat at lunch in Mrs. Lammle’s own boudoir. 

“And so, dearest Georgiana, Alfred is like your notion 
of a lover ? ” 

“ I don’t say that, Sophronia,” Georgiana replied, begin- 
ning to conceal her elbows. “ I haven’t any notion of a 
lover. The dreadful wretches that ma brings up at places to 
torment me, are not lovers. I only mean that Mr. ” 

“Again, dearest Georgiana?” 

“ That Alfred ” 

“ Sounds much better, darling.” 

“ — Loves you so. He always treats you with such deli- 
cate gallantry and attention. Now, don’t he ? ” 

“ Truly, my dear,” said Mrs. Lammle, with a rather sin- 
gular expression crossing her face. “ I believe that he loves 
me fully as much as I love him.” 

“ Oh, what happiness! ” exclaimed Miss Podsnap. 

“ But do you know, my Georgiana,” Mrs. Lammle resumed 
presently, “ that there is something suspicious in your 
enthusiastic sympathy with Alfred’s tenderness? ” 

“ Good gracious no, I hope not! ” 

“ Doesn’t it rather suggest,” said Mrs. Lammle archly, 
“ that my Georgiana’s little heart is ” 

“ Oh don’t! ” Miss Podsnap blushingly besought her. 
“Please don’t! I assure you, Sophronia, that I only praise 


CUPID PROMPTED 287 

Alfred, because he is your husband and so fond of 
you.” 

Sophronia’s glance was as if a rather new light broke in 
upon her. It shaded off into a cool smile, as she said, with 
her eyes upon her lunch, and her eyebrows raised : 

“You are quite wrong, my love, Jn your guess at my 
meaning. What I insinuated was, that my Georgiana’s 
little heart was growing conscious of a vacancy.” 

“ No, no, no,” said Georgiana. “ I wouldn’t have anybody 
say anything to me in that way for I don’t know how many 
thousand pounds.” 

“ In what way, my Georgiana? ” inquired Mrs. Lammle, 
still smiling coolly, with her eyes upon her lunch, and her 
eyebrows raised. 

“ You know,” returned poor little Miss Podsnap. “ I 
think I should go out of my mind, Sophronia, with vexation 
and shyness and detestation, if anybody did. It’s enough for 
me to see how loving you and your husband are. That’s a 
different thing. I couldn’t bear to have anything of that 
sort going on with myself. I should beg and pray to — 
to have the person taken away and trampled upon.” 

Ah! here was Alfred. Having stolen in unobserved, he 
playfully leaned on the back of Sophronia’s chair, and, as 
Miss Podsnap saw him, put one of Sophronia’s wandering 
locks to his lips, and waved a kiss from it towards Miss 
Podsnap. 

“ What is this about husbands and detestations ? ” inquired 
the captivating Alfred. 

“ Why, they say,” returned his wife, that listeners never 
hear any good of themselves ; though you — but pray how 
long have you been here, sir? ” 

This instant arrived, my owm.” 

“ Then I may go on — though if you had been here a 
moment or two sooner, you would have heard your praises 
sounded by Georgiana.” 

“ Only, if they were to be called praises at all, which I 
really don’t think they were,” explained Miss Podsnap in a 
flutter, “ for being so devoted to Sophronia.” 

“ Sophronia! ” murmured Alfred. “ My life! ” and kissed 
her hand. In» return for which she kissed his watch-chain 


288 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ But it was not I who was to be taken away and trampled 
upon, I hope? ” said Alfred, drawing a seat between them. 

“ Ask Georgiana, my soul,” replied his wife. 

Alfred touchingly appealed to Georgiana. 

“ Oh, it was nobody,” replied Miss Podsnap. It was 
nonsense.” 

“ But if you are determined to know, Mr. Inquisitive Pet, 
as I suppose you are,” said the happy and fond Sophronia, 
smiling, it was any one who should venture to aspire to 
Georgiana.” 

“ Sophronia, my love,” remonstrated Mr. Lammle, be- 
coming graver, “ you are not serious? ” 

Alfred, my love,” returned his wife, “ I dare say Georgi- 
ana was not, but I am.” 

“ Now this,” said Mr. Lammle, “ shows the accidental 
combinations that there are in things ! Could you believe, my 
Ownest, that I came in here with the name of an aspirant to 
our Georgiana on my lips? ” 

“ Of course I could believe, Alfred,” said Mrs. Lammle, 
“ anything that you told me.” 

“ You dear one! And I anything that you told me.” 

How delightful those interchanges, and the looks accom- 
panying them! Now, if the skeleton up-stairs had taken 
that opportunity, for instance, of calling out “ Here I am, 
suffocating in the closet!” 

“ I give you my honour, my dear Sophronia ” 

And I know" what that is, love,” said she. 

“ You do, my darling — that I came into the room all but 
uttering young Fledgeby’s name. Tell Georgiana, dearest, 
about young Fledgeby.” 

“ Oh no, don’t! Please don’t! ” cried Miss Podsnap, 
putting her fingers in her ears. “ I’d rather not.” 

Mrs. Lammle laughed in her gayest manner, and, removing 
her Georgiana’s unresisting hands, and playfully holding 
them in her own at arm’s length, sometimes near together and 
sometimes wdde apart, went on: 

“You must know, you dearly beloved little goose, that 
once upon a time there was a certain person called young 
Fledgeby. And this young Fledgeby, who was of an excellent 
family and rich, was known to two other certain persons, 


CUPID PROMPTED 


289 


dearlv attached to one another and called Mr. and Mrs. 
Alfred Lammle. So this young Fledgeby, being one night 
at the play, there sees with Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Lammle a 

certain heroine called ” 

“No, don’t say Georgiana Podsnap! ” pleaded that young 
lady, almost in tears. “ Please don’t. Oh, do, do, do say 
somebody else! Not Georgiana Podsnap. Oh, don’t, don’t, 
don’t! ” 

“ No other,” said Mrs. Lammle, laughing airily, and, full of 
affectionate blandishments, opening and closing Georgiana’s 
arms like a pair of compasses, “ than my little Georgiana 
Podsnap. So this young Fledgeby goes to that Alfred 
Lammle and says ” 

“Oh, ple-e-e-ease don’t!” cried Georgiana, as if the 
supplication were being squeezed out of her by powerful com- 
pression. “ I so hate hijn for saying it! ” 

“ For saying what, my dear? ” laughed Mrs. Lammle. 

“ Oh, I don’t know what he said,” cried Georgiana wildly, 
“ but I hate him all the same for saying it.” 

“ My dear,” said Mrs. Lammle, always laughing in her 
most captivating way, “ the poor young fellow only says that 
he is stricken all of a heap.” 

“ Oh, what shall I ever do! ” interposed Georgiana. “ Oh, 
my goodness, what a fool he must be! ” 

“ — And implores to be asked to dinner, and to make a 
fourth at the play another time. And so he dines to-morrow 
and goes to the Opera with us. That’s all. Except, my 
dear Georgiana — and what will you think of this ! — that he 
is infinitely shyer than you, and far more afraid of you than 
you ever were of any one in all your days ! ” 

In perturbation of mind Miss Podsnap still fumed and 
plucked at her hands a little, but could not help laughing 
at the notion of anybody’s being afraid of her. With that 
advantage, Sophronia flattered her and rallied her more 
successfully, and then the insinuating Alfred flattered her 
and rallied her, and promised that at any moment when she 
might require that service at his hands, he would take young 
Fledgeby out and trample on him. Thus it remained amicably 
understood that young Fledgeby was to come to admire, and 
that Georgiana was to come to be admired; and Georgiana 


290 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


with the entirely new sensation in her breast of having that 
prospect before her, and with many kisses from her dear 
Sophronia in present possession, preceded six feet one of 
discontented footman (an amount of the article that always 
came for her when she walked home) to her father’s dwelling. 

The happy pair being left together, Mrs. Lammle said to 
her husband: 

“ If I understand this girl, sir, your dangerous fascinations 
have produced some effect upon her. I mention the conquest 
in good time, because I apprehend your scheme to be more 
important to you than your vanity.” 

There was a mirror on the wall before them, and her eyes 
just caught him smirking in it. She gave the reflected image 
a look of the deepest disdain, and the image received it in the 
glass. Next moment they quietly eyed each other, as if they, 
the principals, had had no part in that expressive trans- 
action. 

It may have been that Mrs. Lammle tried in some manner 
to excuse her conduct to herself by depreciating the poor 
little victim of whom she spoke with acrimonious contempt. 
It may have been too that in this she did not quite succeed, 
for it is very difficult to resist confidence, and she knew she 
had Georgiana’s. 

Nothing more w^as said between the happy pair. Perhaps 
conspirators, who have once established an understanding, 
may not be over-fond of repeating the terms and objects of 
their conspiracy. Next day came; came Georgiana; and 
came Fledgeby. 

Georgiana had by this time seen a good deal of the house 
and its frequenters. As there Avas a certain handsome room 
with a billiard table in it — on the ground floor, eating out 
a back-yard — which might have been Mr. Lammle’s office, 
or library, but w^as called by neither name, but simply Mr. 
Lammle’s room, so it would have been hard for stronger 
female heads than Georgiana’s to determine whether its 
frequenters w^ere men of pleasure or men of business. 
Between the room and the men there were strong points 
of general resemblance. Both were too gaudy, too slangy, 
too odorous of cigars, and too much given to horseflesh; 
the latter characteristic being exemplified in the room by its 


CUPID PROMPTED 


291 


decorations, and in the men by their conversation. High- 
stepping horses seemed necessary to all Mr. Lammle’s friends 
— as necessary as their transaction of business together in 
a gipsy way at untimely hours of the morning and evening, 
and in rushes and snatches. There were friends who seemed 
to be always coming and going across the Channel, on errands 
about the Bourse, and Greek and Spanish and India and 
Mexican and par and premium and discount and three 
quarters and seven eighths. There were other friends who 
seemed to be always lolling and lounging in and out of the 
City, on questions of the Bourse, and Greek and Spanish 
and India and Mexican and par and premium and discount 
and three quarters and seven eighths. They were all fever- 
ish, boastful, and indefinably loose; and they all ate and 
drank a great deal; and made bets in eating and drinking. 
They all spoke of sums of money, and only mentioned the 
sums and left the money to be understood ; as “ five and forty 
thousand Tom,” or “ Two hundred and twenty-two on every 
individual share in the lot Joe.” They seemed to divide the 
world into two classes of people; people who were making 
enormous fortunes, and people who were being enormously 
ruined. They were always in a hurry, and yet seemed to 
have nothing tangible to do; except a few of them (these, 
mostly asthmatic and thick-lipped) who were for ever dem- 
onstrating to the rest, with gold pencil-cases which they 
could hardly hold, because of the big rings on their forefingers, 
how money was to be made. Lastly, they all swore at their 
grooms, and the grooms were not quite as respectful oi 
complete as other men’s grooms; seeming somehow to 
fall short of the groom point as their masters fell short of the 
gentleman point. 

Young Fledgeby was none of these. Young Fledgeby had 
a peachy cheek, or a cheek compounded of the peach and 
the red red red wall on which it grows, and was an awkward, 
sandy-haired, small-eyed youth, exceeding slim (his enemies 
would have said lanky), and prone to self-examination in the 
articles of whisker and moustache. While feeling for the 
whisker that he anxiously expected, Fledgeby underwent 
remarkable fluctuations of spirits, ranging along the whole 
scale from confidence to despair. There were times when 


292 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


he started, as exclaiming, “ By Jupiter, here it is at last! ** 
There were other times when, being equally depressed, 
he would be seen to shake his head and give up hope. To 
see him at those periods leaning on a chimneypiece, like 
as on an urn containing the ashes of his ambition, with the 
cheek that would not sprout, upon the hand on which that 
cheek had forced conviction, was a distressing sight. 

Not so was Fledge by seen on this occasion. Arrayed in 
superb raiment, with his opera hat under his arm, he con- 
cluded his self-examination hopefully, awaited the arrival of 
Miss Podsnap, and talked small-talk with Mrs. Lanimle. In 
facetious homage to the smallness of his talk, and the jerky 
nature of his manners, Fledgeby’s familiars had agreed to 
confer upon him (behind his back) the honorary title of 
Fascination Fledge by. 

“ Warm weather, Mrs. Lammle,” said Fascination 
Fledge by. Mrs. Lammle thought it scarcely as warm as it had 
been yesterday. “ Perhaps not,’’ said Fascination Fledgeby, 
with great quickness of repartee; “ but I expect it will be 
devilish warm to-morrow.” 

He threw off another little scintillation. “ Been out to- 
day, Mrs. Lammle ? ” 

Mrs. Lammle answered, for a short drive. 

“ Some people,” said Fascination Fledgeby, “ are accus- 
tomed to take long drives; but it generally appears to me that 
if they make ’em too long, they overdo it.” 

Being in such feather, he might have surpassed himself in 
his next sally, had not Miss Podsnap been announced. Mrs. 
Lammle flew to embrace her darling little Georgy, and when 
the first transports were over, presented Mr. Fledgeby. IMr. 
Lammle came on the scene last, for he was always late, and 
so were the frequenters always late; all hands being bound 
to be made late, by private information about the Bourse, and 
Greek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and 
premium and discount and three quarters and seven eighths. 

A handsome little dinner was served immediately, and 
Mr. Lammle sat sparkling at his end of the table, with his 
servant behind his chair, and his ever-lingering doubts upon 
the subject of his wages behind himself. Mr. Larnmle’s ut- 
most powers of sparkling were in requisition to-day, for 


CUPID PROMPTED 


293 


Fascination Fledgeby and Georgiana not only struck each 
other speechless, but struck each other into astonishing 
attitudes; Georgiana, as she sat facing Fledgeby, making 
such efforts to conceal her elbows as were totally incompatible 
with the use of a knife and fork; and Fledgeby, as he sat 
facing Georgiana, avoiding her countenance by every possible 
device, and betraying the discomposure of his mind in feeling 
for his whiskers with his spoon, his wine-glass, and his 
bread. 

So Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Lammle had to prompt, and this 
is how they prompted. 

“ Georgiana,” said Mr. Lammle, low and smiling, and 
sparkling all over, like a harlequin; “you are not in your 
usual spirits. Why are you not in your usual spirits, Georgi- 
ana?” 

Georgiana faltered that she was much the same as she 
was in general; she was not aware of being different. 

“Not aware of being different!” retorted Mr. Alfred 
Lammle. “You, my dear Georgiana! who are always so 
natural and unconstrained with us! who are such a relief 
from the crowd that are all alike ! who are the embodiment 
of gentleness, simplicity, and reality!” 

Miss Podsnap looked at the door, as if she entertained 
confused thoughts of taking refuge from these compliments 
in flight. 

“ Now, I will be judged,” said Mr. Lammle, raising his 
voice a little, “ by my friend Fledgeby.” 

“ Oh don’t! ” Miss Podsnap faintly ejaculated: when Mrs. 
Lammle took the prompt-book. 

“ I beg your pardon, Alfred, my dear, but I cannot part 
with Mr. Fledgeby quite yet; you must wait for him a mo- 
ment. Mr. Fledgeby and I are engaged in a [)ersonal dis- 
cussion.” 

Fledgeby must have conducted it on his side with immense 
art, for no appearance of uttering one syllable had escaped 
him. 

“ A personal discussion, Sophronia, my love ? What 
discussion ? Fledgeby, I am jealous. What discussion, 
Fledgeby ? ” 

“Shall I tell him, Mr. Fledgeby?” asked Mrs. Lammle. 


294 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Trying to look as if he knew anything about it, Fascina* 
tion replied, “ Yes, tell him.” 

“ We were discussing then,” said Mrs. Lammle, “ if you 
must know, Alfred, whether Mr. Fledge by was in his usual 
flow of spirits.” 

“ Why, that is the very point, Sophronia, that Georgiana 
and I were discussing as to herself! What did Fledgeby 
say ? ” 

“ Oh, a likely thing, sir, that I am going to tell you every- 
thing, and be told nothing! What did Georgiana say?” 

“ Georgiana said she was doing her usual justice to herself 
to-day, and I said she was not.” 

“ Precisely,” exclaimed Mrs. Lammle, “ what I said to Mr. 
Fledgeby.” 

Still, it wouldn’t do. They would not look at one another. 
No, not even when the sparkling host proposed that the 
quartette should take an appropriately sparkling glass of 
wine. Georgiana looked from her wine-glass at Mr. Lammle 
and at Mrs. Lammle; but mightn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t, 
wouldn’t, look at Mr. Fledgeby. Fascination looked from 
his wine-glass at Mrs. Lammle and at Mr. Lammle; but 
mightn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, look at Georgiana. 

More prompting was necessary. Cupid must be brought 
up to the mark. The manager had put him down in the 
bill for the part, and he must play it. 

“ Sophronia, my dear,” said Mr. Lammle, “ I don’t like the 
colour of your dress.” 

“ I appeal,” said Mrs. Lammle, ” to Mr. Fledgeby.” 

‘‘ And I,” said Mr. Lammle, “ to Georgiana.” 

‘‘ Georgy, my love,” remarked Mrs. Lammle aside to her 
dear girl, “ I rely upon you not to go over to the opposition. 
Now, Mr. Fledgeby.” 

Fascination wished to know if the colour were not called 
rose-colour? Yes, said Mr. Lammle; actually he knew every- 
thing; it was really rose-colour. Fascination took rose-colour 
to mean the colour of roses. (In this he was very warmly 
supported by Mr. and Mrs. Lammle.) Fascination had heard 
the term Queen of Flowers applied to the Rose. Similarly, 
it might be said that the dress was the Queen of Dresses. 

Very happy, Fledgeby!” from Mr. Lammle.) Notwith- 


CUPID PROMPTED 


295 


standing, Fascination’s opinion was that we all had our eyes 
— or at least a large majority of us — and that — and — and 
his further opinion was several ands, with nothing beyond 
them. 

Oh, Mr. Fledgeby,” said Mrs. Lammle, “ to desert me in 
that way! Oh! Mr. Fledgeby, to abandon my poor dear 
injured rose and declare for blue! ” 

“Victory, victory!” cried Mr. Lammle; “your dress is 
condemned, my dear.” 

“ But what,” said Mrs. Lammle, stealing her affectionate 
hand towards her dear girl’s, “ what does Georgy 
say?” 

“ She says,” replied Mr. Lammle, interpreting for her, 
“ that in her eyes you look well in any colour, Sophronia, 
and that if she had expected to be embarrassed by so pretty 
a compliment as she has received, she would have worn 
another colour herself. Though I tell her, in reply, that it 
would not have saved her, for whatever colour she had worn 
would have been Fledgeby ’s colour. But what does Fledgeby 
say?” 

“ He says,” replied Mrs. Lammle, interpreting for him, 
and patting the back of her dear girl’s hand, as if it were 
Fledgeby who was patting it, “ that it was no compliment, 
but a little natural act of homage that he couldn’t resist. 
And,” expressing more feeling as if it were more feeling on 
the part of Fledgeby, “he is right, he is right! ” 

Still, no, not even now, would they look at one another. 
Seeming to gnash his sparkling teeth, studs, eyes, and buttons, 
all at once, Mr. Lammle secretly bent a dark frown on the 
two, expressive of an intense desire to bring them together 
by knocking their heads together. 

“ Have you heard this opera of to-night, Fledgeby ? ” he 
asked, stopping very short, to prevent himself from running 
on into “ confound you.” 

“ Why, no, not exactly,” said Fledgeby. “ In fact I don’t 
know a note of it.” 

“ Neither do you know it, Georgy ? ” said Mrs. Lammle. 

“ N-no,” replied Georgiana, faintly, under the sympathetic 
coincidence. 

“ Why, then,” said Mrs. Lammle, charmed by the discovery 


296 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


which flowed from the premises, “ you neither of you know 
it! How charming!” 

Even the craven Fledgeby felt that the time was now come 
when he must strike a blow. He struck it by saying, partly 
to Mrs. Lainmle and partly to the circumambient air, “ I 
consider myself very fortunate in being reserved by ” 

As he stopped dead, Mr. Lammle, making that gingerous 
bush of his whiskers to look out of, offered him the word 
“ Destiny.” 

“ No, I wasn’t going to say that,” said Fledgeby. “ I was 
going to say Fate. I consider it very fortunate that Fate 
has written in the book of — in the book which is its own 
property — that I should go to that opera for the first time 
under the memorable circumstances of going with Miss 
Podsnap.” 

To which Georgiana replied, hooking her two little fingers 
in one another, and addressing the table-cloth, “ Thank you, 
but I generally go with no one but you, Sophronia, and I like 
that very much.” 

Content perforce wdth this success for the time, Mr. Lammle 
let Miss Podsnap out of the room, as if he were opening her 
cage door, and Mrs. Lammle followed. Coffee being pres- 
ently served up-stairs, he kept a watch on Fledgeby until Miss 
Podsnap’s cup was empty, and then directed him with his 
finger (as if that young gentleman w^ere a slow Retriever) to 
go and fetch it. This feat he performed, not only without 
failure, but even with the original embellishment of informing 
Miss Podsnap that green tea was considered bad for the 
nerves. Though there Miss Podsnap unintentionally threw 
him out by faltering, “ Oh, is it indeed ? How does it act? ” 
Which he was not prepared to elucidate. 

The carriage announced, Mrs. Lammle said, “ Don’t mind 
me, Mr. Fledgeby, my skirts and cloak occupy both my 
hands; take Miss Podsnap.” And he took her, and Mrs. 
Lammle went next, and Mr. Lammle went last, savagely 
following his little flock, like a drover. 

But he was all sparkle and glitter in the box at the Opera, 
and there he and his dear wife made a conversation between 
Fledgeby and Georgiana in the following ingenious and skil- 
ful manner. They sat in this order: Mrs. Lammle, Fascina- 


CUPID PROMPTED 


297 


tion Fledgeby, Georgiana, Mr. Lammle. Mrs. Lammle 
made leading remarks to Fledgeby, only requiring mono- 
syllabic replies. Mr. Lammle did the like with Georgiana. 
At times Mrs. Lammle would lean forward to address Mr. 
Lammle to this purpose. 

“ Alfred, my dear, Mr. Fledgeby very justly says, a propos 
of the last scene, that true constancy would not require any 
such stimulant as the stage deems necessary.” To which 
Mr. Lammle would reply, “ Ay, Sophronia, my love, but as 
Georgiana has observed to me, the lady had no sufficient 
reason to know the state of the gentleman’s affection ” To 
which Mrs. Lammle would rejoin, “ Very true, Alfred; but 
Mr. Fledgeby points out,” this. To which Alfred would 
demur: Undoubtedly, Sophronia, but Georgiana acutely 

remarks,” that. Through this device the two young people 
conversed at great length and committed themselves to a 
variety of delicate sentiments, without having once opened 
their lips, save to say yes or no, and even that not to one an- 
other. 

Fledgeby took his leave of Miss Podsnap at the carriage 
door, and the Lammles dropped her at her own home, and 
on the way Mrs. Lammle archly rallied her, in her fond 
and protecting manner, by saying at intervals, “ Oh, little 
Georgiana, little Georgiana!” Which was not much; but 
the tone added, “ You have enslaved your Fledgeby.” 

And thus the Lammles got home at last, and the lady 
sat down moody and weary, looking at her dark lord engaged 
in a deed of violence with a bottle of soda-water, as though 
he were wringing the neck of some unlucky creature and 
pouring its blood down his throat. As he wiped his dripping 
whiskers in an ogreish way, he met her eyes, and pausing, 
said, with no very gentle voice: 

“Well?” 

“ Was such an absolute Booby necessary to the purpose ? ” 

“ I know what I am doing. He is no such dolt as you 
suppose.” 

“ A genius, perhaps? ” 

“ You sneer, perhaps; and you take a lofty air upon your- 
self, perhaps! But I tell you this: — when that young fellow’s 
interest is concerned, he holds as tight as a horse-leech 


298 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


When money is in question with that young fellow^ he is a 
match for the Devil.” 

“ Is he a match for you ? ” 

“ He is. Almost as good a one as you thought me for you. 
He has no quality of youth in him, but such as you have 
seen to-day. Touch him upon money, and you touch no 
booby then. He really is a dolt, I suppose, in other things; 
but it answers his one purpose very well.” 

“ Has she money in her own right in any case ? ” 

“Ay! she has money in her own right in any case. You 
have done so well to-day, Sophronia, that I answer the ques- 
tion, though you know I object to any such questions. You 
have done so well to-day, Sophronia, that you must be tired. 
Get to bed.” 


CHAPTER V 


MERCURY PROMPTING 

Fledgeby deserved Mr. Alfred Lammle’s eulogium. He 
was the meanest cur existing, with a single pair of legs. And 
instinct (a word we all clearly understand) going largely on 
four legs, and reason always on two, meanness on four legs 
never attains the perfection of meanness on two. 

The father of this young gentleman had been a money- 
lender, who had transacted professional business with the 
mother of this young gentleman, when he, the latter, was 
waiting in the vast dark ante-chambers of the present world 
to be born. The lady, a widow, being unable to pay the 
money-lender, married him; and in due course, Fledgeby 
was summoned out of the vast dark ante-chambers to come 
and be presented to the Registrar-General. Rather a curious 
speculation how Fledgeby would otherwise have disposed of 
his leisure until Doomsday. 

Fledgeby’s mother offended her family by marrying 
Fledgeby’ s father. It is one of the easiest achievements in 
life to offend your family when your family want to get rid 
of you. Fledgeby’s mother’s family had been very much 
offended with her for being poor, and broke with her for 
becoming comparatively rich. Fledgeby’s mother’s family 
was the Snigsworth family. She had even the high honour 
to be cousin to Lord Snigsworth — so many times removed 
that the noble Earl would have had no compunction in re- 
moving her one time more and dropping her clean outside 
the cousinly pale; but cousin for all that. 

Among her pre-matrimonial transactions with Fledgeby’s 
father, Fledgeby’s mother had raised money of him at a great 
disadvantage on a certain reversionary interest. The reversion 
falling in soon after they were married, Fledgeby’s father laid 


300 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


hold of the cash for his separate use and benefit This led 
to subjective differences of opinion, not to say objective 
interchanges of boot-jacks, backgammon boards, and other 
such domestic missiles, between Fledgeby’s father and 
Fledgeby’s mother, and those led to Fledgeby’s mother 
spending as much money as she could, and to Fledgeby’s 
father doing all he couldn’t to restrain her. Fledgeby’s child- 
hood had been, in consequence, a stormy one; but the winds 
and the waves had gone down in the grave, and Fledgeby 
flourished alone. 

He lived in chambers in the Albany, did Fledgeby, and 
maintained a spruce appearance. But his youthful fire was 
all composed of sparks from the grindstone; and as the sparks 
flew off, went out, and never warmed anything, be sure that 
Fledgeby had his tools at the grindstone, and turned it with a 
wary eye. 

Mr. Alfred Lammle came round to the Albany to breakfast 
with Fledgeby. Present on the table, one scanty pot of tea, 
one scanty loaf, two scanty pots of butter, two scanty rashers 
of bacon, two pitiful eggs, and an abundance of handsome 
china bought a second-hand bargain. 

“ What did you think of Georgiana? ” asked Mr. Lammle. 

“ Why, ril tell you,” said Fledgeby, very deliberately. 

“ Do, my boy.” 

“ You misunderstand me,” said Fledgeby. “ I don’t mean 
ril tell you that. I mean Fll tell you something else.” 

“ Tell me anything, old fellow! ” 

Ah, but there you misunderstand me again,” said 
Fledgeby. “ I mean Fll tell you nothing.” 

Mr. Lammle sparkled at him, but frowned at him too. 

“Look here,” said Fledgeby. “You’re deep and you’re 
ready. Whether I am deep or not, never mind. I am not 
ready. But I can do one thing, Lammle, I can hold my 
tongue. And I intend always doing it.” 

“ You are a long-headed fellow, Fledgeby.” 

“ May be, or may not be. If I am a short-tongued fellow, 
it may amount to the same thing. Now, Lammle, I am never 
going to answer questions.” 

“ My dear fellow^, it was the simplest question in the world.” 

“ Never mind. It seemed so, but things are not always 


MERCURY PROMPTING 


301 


what they seem. I saw a man examined as a witness in West- 
minster Hall. Questions put to him seemed the simplest 
in the world, but turned out to be anything rather than that, 
after he had answered *em. Very well. Then he should 
have held his tongue. If he had held his tongue he would 
have kept out of scrapes that he got into.” 

“ If I had held my tongue, you would never have seen the 
subject of my question,” remarked Lammle, darkening. 

“ Now, Lammle,” said Fascination Fledgeby, calmly feel- 
ing for his whisker, ‘‘ it won’t do. I won’t be led on into a 
discussion. I can’t manage a discussion. But I can manage 
to hold my tongue.” 

“ Can ? ” Mr. Lammle fell back upon propitiation. “ I 
should think you could! Why, when these fellows of our 
acquaintance drink and you drink with them, the more talk- 
ative they get, the more silent you get. The more they let 
out, the more you keep in.” 

“ I don’t object, Lammle,” returned Fledgeby, with an 
internal chuckle, “ to being understood, though I object to 
being questioned. That certainly is the way I do it.” 

“ And when all the rest of us are discussing our ventures, 
none of us ever know what a single venture of yours is! ” 
And none of you ever will from me, Lammle,” replied 
Fledgeby, with another internal chuckle; that certainly is 
the way I do it.” 

“Why, of course it is, I know!” rejoined Lammle, with 
a flourish of frankness, and a laugh, and stretching out his 
hands as if to show the universe a remarkable man in 
Fledgeby. “ If I hadn’t known it of my Fledgeby, should 
I have proposed our little compact of advantage to my 
Fledgeby? ” 

“Ah!” remarked Fascination, shaking his head slyly. 
“ But I am not to be got at in that way. I am not vain. That 
sort of vanity don’t pay, Lammle. No, no, no. Compliments 
only make me hold my tongue the more.” 

Alfred Lammle pushed his plate away (no great sacrifice, 
under the circumstances of there being so little in it), thrust 
his hands in his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and con- 
templated Fledgeby in silence. Then he slowly released his 
left hand from its pocket, and made that bush of his whiskers, 


302 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


still contemplating him in silence. Then he slowly broke 
silence, and slowly said: “ What — the — Dev-il is this fellow 
about this morning ? ” 

“ Now, look here, Lammle,” said Fascination Fledgeby, 
with the meanest of twinkles in his meanest of eyes, which 
were too near together, by the way: “ look here, Lammle; 
I am very well aware that I didn’t show to advantage last 
night, and that you and your wife — who I consider is a very 
clever woman and an agreeable woman — did. I am not 
calculated to show to advantage under that sort of circum- 
stances. I know very well you two did show to advantage, 
and managed capitally. But don’t you on that account come 
talking to me as if I was your doll and puppet, because I am 
not.” 

“ And all this,” cried Alfred, after studying with a look 
the meanness that was fain to have the meanest help, and 
yet was so mean as to turn upon it: “ all this because of one 
simple natural question ! ” 

“You should have waited till I thought proper to say 
something about it of myself. I don’t like your coming over 
me with your Georgianas, as if you was her proprietor and 
mine too.” 

“ Well, when you are in the gracious mind to say anything 
about it of yourself,” retorted Lammle, “ pray do.” 

“ I have done it. I have said you managed capitally. 
You and your wife both. If you’ll go on managing capitally. 
I’ll go on doing my part. Only don’t crow.” 

“I crow!” exclaimed Lammle, shrugging his shoul- 
ders. 

“ Or,” pursued the other — “or take it in your head that 
people are your puppets because they don’t come out to 
advantage at the particular moments when you do, with the 
assistance of a very clever and agreeable wife. All the rest 
keep on doing, and let Mrs. Lammle keep on doing. Now, 
I have held my tongue when I thought proper, and I have 
spoken when I thought proper, and there’s an end of that. 
And now the question is,” proceeded Fledgeby, with the 
greatest reluctance, “ will you have another egg? ” 

“ No, I won’t,” said Lammle shortly. 

“ Perhaps you’re right and will find yourself better without 


MERCURY PROMPTING 


303 


it/’ replied Fascination, in greatly improved spirits. “ I'o 
ask you if you’ll have another rasher would be unmeaning 
flattery, for it would make you thirsty all day. Will you 
have some more bread and butter? ” 

“ No, I won’t,” repeated Lammle. 

“ Then I will,” said Fascination. And it w'as not a mere 
retort for the sound’s sake, but was a cheerful cogent con- 
sequence of the refusal; for if Lammle had applied himself 
again to the loaf, it would have been so heavily visited, in 
Fledgeby’s opinion, as to demand abstinence from bread, on 
his part, for the remainder of that meal at least, if not for 
the whole of the next. 

Whether this young gentleman (for he was but three-and- 
twenty) combined with the miserly vice of an old man, any 
of the open-handed vices of a young one, was a moot point; 
so very honourably did he keep his own counsel. He was 
sensible of the value of appearances as an investment, and 
liked to dress w^ell; but he drove a bargain for every movable 
about him, from the coat on his back to the china on his 
breakfast-table; and every bargain, by representing some- 
body’s ruin or somebody’s loss, acquired a peculiar charm 
for him. It was a part of his avarice to take, within narrow 
bounds, long odds at races; if he won, he drove harder 
bargains; if he lost, he half starved himself until next time. 
Why money should be so precious to an Ass too dull and 
mean to exchange it for any other satisfaction, is strange; 
but there is no animal so sure to get laden with it, as the 
Ass who sees nothing written on the face of the earth and 
sky but the three letters L. S. D. — not Luxury, Sensuality, 
Dissoluteness, which they often stand for, but the three dry 
letters. Your concentrated Fox is seldom comparable to 
your concentrated Ass in money-breeding. 

Fascination Fledgeby feigned to be a young gentleman 
living on his means, but was known secretly to be a kind of 
outlaw in the bill-broking line, and to put money out at high 
interest in various ways. His circle of familiar acquaintance, 
from Mr. Lammle round, all had a touch of the outlaw, as to 
their rovings in the merry greenwood of Jobbery Forest, lying 
on the outskirts of the Share Market and the Stock Ex- 
change. 


304 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I suppose you, Lammle,” said Fledgeby, eating his 
bread and butter, “ always did go in for female society? ” 

“ Always,” replied Lammle, glooming considerably under 
his late treatment. 

“ Came natural to you, eh? ” said Fledgeby. 

“ The sex were pleased to like me, sir,” said Lammle 
sulkily, but with the air of a man who had not been able to 
help himself. 

“Made a pretty good thing of marrying, didn’t you?” 
asked Fledge%. 

The other smiled (an ugly smile), and tapped one tap upon 
his nose. 

“ My late governor made a mess of it,” said Fledgeby. 
“ But Geor is the right name Georgina or Georgiana? ” 

“ Georgiana.” 

“ I was thinking yesterday, I didn’t know there was such 
a name. I thought it must end in ina.” 

“Why?” 

“ Why, you play — if you can — the Concertina, you 
know,” replied Fledgeby, meditating very slowly. “ And you 
have — when you catch it — the Scarlatina. And you can 

come down from a balloon in a parach no, you can’t, 

though. Well, say Georgeute — I mean Georgiana.” 

“You were going to remark of Georgiana ? ” Lammle 

moodily hinted, after waiting in vain. 

“ I was going to remark of Georgiana, sir,” said Fledgeby, 
not at all pleased to be reminded of his having forgotten it, 
“ that she don’t seem to be violent. Don’t seem to be of the 
pitching-in order.” 

“ She has the gentleness of the dove, Mr. Fledgeby.” 

“ Of course, you’ll say so,” replied Fledgeby, sharpening, 
the moment his interest was touched by another. “ But you 
know the real look-out is this: — what I say, not what you 
say. I say — having my late governor and my late mother 
in my eye — that Georgiana don’t seem to be of the pitch- 
ing-in order.” 

The respected Mr. Lammle was a bully, by nature and by 
usual practice. Perceiving, as Fledgeby ’s affronts cumulated, 
that conciliation by no means answered the purpose here, he 
now directed a scowling look into Fledgeby’s small eyes for 


MERCURY PROMPTING 


305 


the effect of the opposite treatment. Satisfied by what he 
saw there, he burst into a violent passion and struck his 
hand upon the table, making the china ring and dance. 

“ You are a very offensive fellow, sir,” cried Mr. Lanimle, 
rising. “ You are a highly offensive scoundrel. What do 
you mean by this behaviour? ” 

“ I say,” remonstrated Fledgeby. “ Don’t break out.” 

“You are a very offensive fellow, sir,” repeated Mr. 
Lammle. “You are a highly offensive scoundrel! ” 

“ I say, you know! ” urged Fledgeby, quailing. 

“Why, you coarse and vulgar vagabond!” said Mr. 
Lammle, looking fiercely about him, “ if your servant was 
here to give me sixpence of your money to get my boots 
cleaned afterwards — for you are not worth the expenditure 
— Fd kick you.” 

“ No, you wouldn’t,” pleaded Fledgeby. “ I am sure you’d 
think better of it.” 

“ I tell you what, Mr. Fledgeby,” said Lammle, advancing 
on him. “ Since you presume to contradict me. I’ll assert 
myself a little. Give me your nose ! ” 

Fledgeby covered it with his hand instead, and said, re- 
treating, “ I beg you won’t!” 

“ Give me your nose, sir,” repeated Lammle. 

Still covering that feature and backing, Mr. Fledgeby 
reiterated (apparently with a severe cold in his head), “ 1 beg, 
I beg, you won’t.” 

“ And this fellow,” exclaimed Lammle, stopping and 
making the most of his chest — “ this fellow presumes on my 
having selected him out of all the young fellows I know, for 
an advantageous opportunity! This fellow presumes on. my 
having in my desk round the corner, his dirty note of hand 
for a wretched sum payable on the occurrence of a certain 
event, which event can only be of my and my wife’s bringing 
about! This fellow, Fledgeby, presumes to be impertinent 
to me, Lammle. Give me your nose, sir! ” 

“ No! Stop! I beg your pardon,” said Fledgeby, with 
humility. 

“ What do you say, sir? ” demanded Mr. Lammle, seem- 
ing too furious to understand. 

“ I beg your pardon,” repeated Fledgeby. 


306 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Repeat your words louder, sir. The just indignation of 
a gentleman has sent the blood boiling to my head. I don’t 
hear you.” 

“ I say,” repeated Fledgeby, with laborious explanatory 
politeness, “ 1 beg your pardon.” 

Mr. Lammle paused. “ As a man of honour,” said he, 
throwing himself into a chair, “ I am disarmed.” 

Mr. Fledgeby also took a chair, though less demonstra- 
tively, and by slow approaches removed his hand from his 
nose. Some natural diffidence assailed him as to blowing it, so 
shortly after its having assumed a personal and delicate, not 
to say public, character; but he overcame his scruples by 
degrees, and modestly took that liberty under an implied 
protest. 

“ Lammle,” he said sneakingly, when that was done, “ I 
hope we are friends again ? ” 

“ Mr. Fledgeby,” returned Lammle, “ say no more.” 

“ I must have gone too far in making myself disagreeable,” 
said Fledgeby, “ but I never intended it.” 

“ Say no more, say no more! ” Mr. Lammle repeated in 
a magnificent tone. “ Give me your ” — Fledgeby started — 
‘‘ hand.” 

They shook hands, and on Mr. Lammle’ s part, in particu- 
lar, there ensued great geniality. For he was quite as much 
of a dastard as the other, and had been in equal danger of 
falling into the second place for good, when he took heart 
just in time to act upon the information conveyed to him by 
Fledgeby’ s eyes. 

The breakfast ended in a perfect understanding. Incessant 
machinations were to be kept at work by Mr. and Mrs. 
Lammle; love was to be made for Fledgeby, and conquest 
was to be insured to him; he on his part very humbly ad- 
mitting his defects as to the softer social arts, and entreating 
to be backed to the utmost by his two able coadjutors. 

Little recked Mr. Podsnap of the traps and toils besetting 
his Young Person. He regarded her as safe within the 
Temple of Podsnappery, biding the fulness of time when 
she, Georgiana, should take him, Fitz-Podsnap, who with all 
his worldly goods should her endow. It would call a blush 
into the cheek of his standard Young Person to have any- 


MERCURY PROMPTING 


307 


thing to do with such matters save to take as directed, and 
with worldly goods as per settlement to be endowed. Who 
giveth this woman to be married to this man? I, Podsnap. 
Perish the daring thought that any smaller creation should 
come between! 

It was a public holiday, and Fledgeby did not recover his 
spirits or his usual temperature of nose until the afternoon. 
Walking into the City in the holiday afternoon, he walked 
against a living stream setting out of it; and thus, when 
he turned into the precincts of St. Mary Axe, he found a 
prevalent repose and quiet there. A yellow overhanging 
plaster-fronted house at which he stopped was quiet too. 
The blinds were all drawn down, and the inscription Pubsey 
and Co. seemed to doze in the counting-house window on 
the ground floor giving on the sleepy street. 

Fledgeby knocked and rang, and Fledgeby rang and 
knocked, but no one came. Fledgeby crossed the narrow 
street and looked up at the house-windows, but nobody 
looked down at Fledgeby. He got out of temper, crossed 
the narrow street again, and pulled the house-bell as if it 
were the house’s nose, and he were taking a hint from his 
late experience. His ear at the keyhole seemed then, at last, 
to give him assurance that something stirred within. His eye 
at the keyhole seemed to confirm his ear, for he angrily 
pulled the house’s nose again, and pulled and pulled and 
continued to pull, until a human nose appeared in the dark 
doorway. 

“ Now, you sir! ” cried Fledgeby. “ These are nice 
games! ” 

He addressed an old Jewish man in an ancient coat, long 
of skirt, and wide of pocket. A venerable man, bald and 
shining at the top of his head, and with long gray hair down- 
ing down at its sides and mingling with his beard. A man 
who with a graceful Eastern action of homage bent his 
head and stretched out his hands with the palms downward, 
as if to deprecate the wrath of a superior. 

“ What have you been up to?” said Fledgeby, storming 
at him. 

Generous Christian master,” urged the Jewish man, “ it 
being holiday, I looked for no one.” 


308 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Holiday be blowed! ” said Fledgeby, entering. “ What 
have you got to do with holidays ? Shut the door.” 

With his former action the old man obeyed. In the entry 
hung his rusty large-brimmed low-crowned hat, as long out 
of date as his coat; in the corner near it stood his staff — no 
walking-stick, but a veritable staff. Fledgeby turned into 
the counting-house, perched himself on a business stool, and 
cocked his hat. There were light boxes on shelves in the 
counting-house, and strings of mock beads hanging up. 
There were samples of cheap clocks, and samples of cheap 
vases of flowers. Foreign toys, all. 

Perched on the stool with his hat cocked on his head and 
one of his legs dangling, the youth of Fledgeby hardly con- 
trasted to advantage with the age of the Jewish man as he 
stood with his bare head bowed, and his eyes (which he 
only raised in speaking) on the ground. His clothing was 
worn down to the rusty hue of the hat in the entry, but 
though he looked shabby he did not look mean. Now 
Fledgeby, though not shabby, did look mean. 

“You have not told me what you were up to, you sir,” 
said Fledgeby, scratching his head with the brim of his 
hat. 

“ Sir, I was breathing the air.” 

“ In the cellar, that you didn’t hear? ” 

“ On the house-top.” 

“ Upon my soul! That’s a way of doing business.” 

“ Sir,” the old man represented with a grave and patient 
air, “ there must be two parties to the transaction of business, 
and the holiday has left me alone.” 

“ Ah! Can’t be buyer and seller too. That’s what’s the 
Jews say; ain’t it?” 

“ At least we say truly, if we say so,” answered the old 
man with a smile. 

“ Your people need speak the truth sometimes, for they lie 
enough,” remarked Fascination Fledgeby. 

“ Sir, there is,” returned the old man with quiet emphasis, 
“ too much untruth among all denominations of men.” 

Rather dashed. Fascination Fledgeby took another scratch 
at his intellectual head with his hat, to gain time for rallying. 

“ For instance,” he resumed, as though it were he who 


MERCURY PROMPTING 309 

had spoken last, “ who but you and I ever heard of a poor 
.ew?” 

“ The Jews,” said the old man, raising his eyes from the 
ground with his former smile. “ They hear of poor Jews 
often, and are very good to them.” 

“ Bother that!” returned Fledgeby. “You know what I 
mean. You’d persuade me, if you could, that you are a poor 
Jew. I wish you’d confess how much you really did make 
out of my late governor. I should have a better opinion of 
you.” 

The old man only bent his head, and stretched out his 
hands as before. 

“ Don’t go on posturing like a Deaf and Dumb School,” 
said the ingenious Fledgeby, “ but express yourself like a 
Christian — or as nearly as you can.” 

“ I had had sickness and misfortunes, and was so poor,” 
said the old man, “ as hopelessly to owe the father principal 
and interest. The son inheriting, was so merciful as to 
forgive me both, and place me here.” 

He made a little gesture as though he kissed the hem of 
an imaginary garment worn by the noble youth before him. 
It was humbly done, but picturesquely, and was not abasing 
to the doer. 

“You won’t say more, I see,” said Fledgeby, looking at 
him as if he would like to try the effect of extracting a double- 
tooth or two, “ and so it’s of no use my putting it to you. 
But confess this, Riah; who believes you to be poor now?” 

“No one,” said the old man. 

“ There you’re right,” assented Fledgeby. 

“ No one,” repeated the old man with a grave slow' wave 
of his head. “ All scout it as a fable. Were I to say, ‘ This 
little fancy business is not mine; ’ ” with a lithe sweep of his 
easily-turning hand around him, to comprehend the various 
objects on the shelves; “ ‘ it is the little business of a Christian 
young gentleman who places me, his servant, in trust and 
charge here, and to whom I am accountable for every single 
bead,’ they would laugh. When, in the larger money-business, 
I tell the borrowers ” 

“I say, old chap!” interposed Fledgeby, “1 hope you 
mind what you do tell ’em? ” 


310 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Sir, I tell them no more than I am about to repeat. 
When 1 tell them, ‘ I cannot promise this, I cannot answer 
for the other, 1 must see my principal, 1 have not the money, 
I am a poor man and it does not rest with me,’ they are so 
unbelieving and so imj)atient, that they sometimes curse me 
in Jehovah’s name.” 

“ That’s deuced good, that is! ” said Fascination Fledgeby. 

“ And at other times they say, ‘ Can it never be done 
without these tricks, Mr. Riah? Come, come, Mr. Riah, we 
know the arts of your people ’ — my people! — ‘ If the money 
is to be lent, fetch it, fetch it; if it is not to be lent, keep it and 
say so.’ They never believe me.’ ” 

“ That's all right,” said Fascination Fledgeby. 

“ They say, ‘ We know, Mr. Riah, we know. We have 
but to look at you, and we know.’ ” 

“ Oh, a good ’un are you for the post,” thought Fledgeby, 

and a good ’un was I to mark you out for it! I may be 
slow, but I am precious sure.” 

Not a syllable of this reflection shaped itself in any scrap 
of Mr. Fledgeby’ s breath, lest it should tend to put his 
servant’s price up. But looking at the old man as he stood 
quiet with his head bowed and his eyes cast down, he felt 
that to relinquish an inch of his baldness, an inch of his 
gray hair, an inch of his coat-skirt, an inch of his hat-brim, 
an inch of his walking-staff, would be to relinquish hundreds 
of pounds. 

“ Look here, Riah,” said Fledgeby, mollified by these self- 
approving considerations. “ I want to go a little more into 
buying up queer bills. Look out in that direction.” 

“ Sir, it shall be done.” 

Casting my eye over the accounts, I find that branch of 
business pays pretty fairly, and I am game for extending it. 
I like to know people’s affairs likewise. So look out.” 

“ Sir, I will, promptly.” 

“ Put it about in the right quarters, that you’ll buy queer 
bills by the lump — by the pound weight if that’s all — 
supposing you see your way to a fair chance on looking over 
the parcel. Arid there’s one thing more. Come to me with 
the books for periodical inspection as usual, at eight on. 
Monday morning.” 


MERCURY PROMPTING 311 

Riah drew some folding tablets from his breast and noted 
it down. 

“ That’s all I wanted to say at the present time,” continued 
Fledgeby in a grudging vein, as he got off the stool, “ except 
that 1 wish you’d take the air where you can hear the bell, 
or the knocker, either one of the two or both. By-the-bye, 
how do you take the air at the top of the house? Do you 
stick your head out of a chimney-pot? ” 

“ Sir, there are leads there, and I have made a little garden 
there.” 

“ To bury your money in, you old dodger ? ” 

“ A thumb-nail’s space of garden w^ould hold the treasure 
I bury, master,” said Riah. “ Twelve shillings a week, even 
when they are an old man’s w^ages, bury themselves.” 

“ I should like to know what you really are worth,” re- 
turned Fledgeby, with whom his growing rich on that 
stipend and gratitude was a very convenient fiction. “ But 
come! Let’s have a look at your garden on the tiles, before 
I go!” 

The old man took a step back, and hesitated. 

“ Truly, sir, I have company there.” 

“ Have you, by George! ” said Fledgeby. “ I suppose you 
happen to know whose premises these are? ” 

“ Sir, they are yours, and I am your servant in them.” 

“ Oh! I thought you might have overlooked that,” retorted 
Fledgeby, with his eyes on Riah’s beard as he felt for his 
own; “ having company on my premises, you know! ” 

“ Come up and see the guests, sir. I hope for your admis- 
sion that they can do no harm.” 

Passing him with a courteous reverence, specially unlike 
any action that Mr. Fledgeby could for his life have imparted 
to his own head and hands, the old man began to ascend the 
stairs. As he toiled on before, with his palm upon the stair- 
rail, and his long black skirt, a very gaberdine, overhanging 
each successive step, he might have been the leader in some 
pilgrimage of devotional ascent to a prophet’s tomb. Not 
troubled by any such weak imagining. Fascination Fledgeby 
merely speculated on the time of life at which his beard had 
begun, and thought once more what a good ’un he was for 
the part. 


312 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Some final wooden steps conducted them, stooping under 
a low pent-house roof, to the house-top. Riah stood still, 
and, turning to his master, pointed out his guests. 

Lizzie Hexam and Jenny Wren. For whom, perhaps with 
some old instinct of his race, the gentle Jew had spread 
a carpet. Seated on it, against no more romantic object than 
a blackened chimney-stack over which some humble creeper 
had been trained, they both pored over one book; both with 
attentive faces; Jenny with the sharper; Lizzie with the 
more perplexed. Another little book or two were lying 
near, and a common basket of common fruit, and another 
basket full of strings of beads and tinsel scraps. A few 
boxes of humble flowers and evergreens completed the garden ; 
and the encompassing wilderness of dowager old chimneys 
twirled their cowls and fluttered their smoke, rather as if 
they were bridling, and fanning themselves, and looking on 
in a state of airy surprise. 

Taking her eyes off the book, to test her memory of some- 
thing in it, Lizzie was the first to see herself observed. As 
she rose. Miss Wren likewise became conscious, and said, 
irreverently addressing the great chief of the premises: 
“ Whoever you are, I can’t get up, because my back’s bad 
and my legs are queer.” 

“ This is my master,” said Riah, stepping forward. 

(‘^ Don’t look like anybody’s master,” observed Miss Wren 
to herself, with a hitch of her chin and eyes.) 

“ This, sir,” pursued the old man, “ is a little dressmaker 
for little people. Explain to the master, Jenny.” 

“ Dolls; that’s all,” said Jenny, shortly. “ Very difficult 
to fit too, because their figures are so uncertain. You never 
know where to expect their waists.” 

“ Her friend,” resumed the old man, motioning towards 
Lizzie; “and as industrious as virtuous. But that they 
both are. They are busy early and late, sir, early and late; 
and in by-times, as on this holiday, they go to book-learning.” 

“ Not much good to be got out of that,” remarked Fledgeby. 

“ Depends upon the person! ” quoth Miss Wren, snapping 
him up. 

“ I made acquaintance with my guests, sir,” pursued the 
Jew, with an evident purpose of drawing out the dressmaker, 






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MERCURY PROMPTING 


313 


“ through their coming here to buy of our damage and waste 
for Miss Jenny’s millinery. Our waste goes into the best of 
company, sir, on her rosy-cheeked little customers. They 
wear it in their hair, and on their ball-dresses, and even (so 
she tells me) are presented at Court with it.” 

“Ah!” said Fledgeby, on whose intelligence this doll- 
fancy rnade rather strong demands; “ she’s been buying that 
basketful to-day, I suppose ? ” 

“ I suppose she has,” Miss Jenny interposed; “ and paying 
for it too, most likely! ” 

“ Let’s have a look at it,” said the suspicious chief. Riah 
handed it to him. “ How much for this now ? ” 

“ Two precious silver shillings,” said Miss Wren. 

Riah confirmed her with two nods, as Fledgeby looked to 
him. A nod for each shilling. 

“ Well,” said Fledgeby, poking into the contents of the 
basket with his forefinger, “ the price is not so bad. You 
have got good measure. Miss What-is-it ? ” 

“Try Jenny,” suggested that young lady with great 
calmness. 

“ You have got good measure. Miss Jenny; but the price 
is not so bad. — And you,” said Fledgeby, turning to the 
other visitor, “ do you buy anything here, miss? ” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ Nor sell anything neither, miss? ” 

“ No, sir.” 

Looking askew at the questioner, Jenny stole her hand up 
to her friend’s, and drew her friend down, so that she bent 
beside her on her knee. 

“ We are thankful to come here for rest, sir,” said Jenny. 
“ You see, you don’t know what the rest of this place is to 
us; does he, Lizzie? It’s the quiet, and the air.” 

“The quiet!” repeated Fledgeby, with a contemptuous 
turn of his head towards the City’s roar. “And the air!” 
with a “ Poof! ” at the smoke. 

“ Ah! ” said Jenny. “ But it’s so high. And you see the 
clouds rushing on above the narrow streets, not minding 
them, and you see the golden arrows pointing at the moun- 
tains in the sky from which the wind comes, and you feel as 
if you were dead.” 


314 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


The little creature looked above her, holding up her slight 
transparent hand. 

“ How do you feel when you are dead ? asked Fledgeby, 
much perplexed. 

“ Oh, so tranquil! ” cried the little creature, smiling. “ Oh, 
so peaceful and so thankful! And you hear the people who 
are alive, crying, and working, and calling to one another 
down in the close dark streets, and you seem to pity them so! 
And such a chain has fallen from you, and such a strange 
good sorrowful happiness comes upon you ! ” 

Her eyes fell on the old man, who, with his hands folded, 
quietly looked on. 

“ Why, it was only just now,’^ said the little creature, 
pointing at him, that I fancied I saw him come out of his 
grave! He toiled out at that low door so bent and worn, 
and then he took his breath and stood upright, and looked all 
round him at the sky, and the wind blew upon him, and his 
life down in the dark was over! — Till he was called back to 
life,” she added, looking round at Fledgeby with that lower 
look of sharpness. “ Why did you call him back? ” 

“ He was long enough coming, anyhow,” grumbled 
Fledgeby. 

“ But ^ou are not dead, you know,” said Jenny Wren. 
“ Get down to life! ” 

Mr. Fledgeby seemed to think it rather a good suggestion, 
and with a nod turned round. As Riah followed to attend 
him down the stairs, the little creature called out to the Jew 
in a silvery tone, “ Don’t be long gone. Come back, and be 
dead ! ” And still as they went down they heard the little 
sweet voice, more and more faintly, half calling and half 
singing, ^‘Come back, and be dead. Come back and be dead !” 

When they got down into the entry, Fledgeby, pausing 
under the shadow of the broad old hat, and mechanically 
poising the staff, said to the old man : 

That’s a handsome girl, that one in her senses.” 

“ And as good as handsome,” answered Riah. 

“ At all events,” observed Fledgeby, with a dry whistle, 
“ I hope she ain’t bad enough to put any chap up to the 
fastenings, and get the premises broken open. You look 
out. Keep your weather eye awake, and don’t make any 


MERCURY PROMPTING 315 

more acquaintances, however handsome. Of course you 
always keep my name to yourself? 

“ Sir, assuredly I do.” 

“ If they ask it, say it’s Pubsey, or say it’s Co., or say it’s 
anything you like, but what it is.” 

His grateful servant — in whose race gratitude is deep, 
strong, and enduring — bowed his head, and actually did now 
put the hem of his coat to his lips; though so lightly that 
the wearer knew nothing of it. 

Thus Fascination Fledgeby went his way, exulting in the 
artful cleverness with which he had turned his thumb down 
on a Jew, and the old man went his different way up-stairs. 
As he mounted, the call or song began to sound in his ears 
again, and, looking above, he saw the face of the little 
creature looking down out of a Glory of her long bright 
radiant hair, and musically repeating to him, like a vision: 
“ Come up and be dead! Come up and be dead! ” 


CHAPTER VI 


A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER 

Again Mr. Mortimer Lightwood and Mr. Eugene Wray- 
burn sat together in the Temple. This evening, however, 
they were not together in the place of business of the eminent 
solicitor, but in another dismal set of chambers facing it on 
the same second floor; on whose dungeon-like black outer- 
door appeared the legend: 

Private. 

Mr. Eugene Wrayburn. 

Mr. Mortimer Lightwood. 

Mr. Lightwood’ s Offices opposite,) 

Appearances indicated that this establishment was a very 
recent institution. The white letters of the inscription were 
extremely white and extremely strong to the sense of smell, 
the complexion of the tables and chairs was (like Lady Tip- 
pins’s) a little too blooming to be believed in, and the carpets 
and floorcloth seemed to rush at the beholder’s face in 
the unusual prominency of their patterns. But the Temple, 
accustomed to tone down both the still life and the human 
life that has much to do with it, would soon get the better 
of all that. 

“ Well! ” said Eugene, on one side of the fire, “ I feel 
tolerably comfortable. I hope the upholsterer may do the 
same.” 

“Why shouldn’t he?” asked Lightwood, from the other 
side of the fire. 

“To be sure,” pursued Eugene, reflecting, “ he is not in 
the secret of our pecuniary affairs, so perhaps he may be in 
an easy frame of mind.” 


A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER 


317 


“ We shall pay him,” said Mortimer. 

“ Shall we really? ” returned Eugene, indolently surprised. 
“You don’t say so!” 

“ I mean to pay him, Eugene, for my part,” said Mortimer, 
in a slightly injured tone. 

“Ah! I mean to pay him, too,” retorted Eugene. “But 
then I mean so much that I — - that I don’t mean.” 

“ Don’t mean ? ” 

“ So much that I only mean and shall always only mean 
and nothing more, my dear Mortimer. It’s the same thing.” 

His friend, lying back in his easy-chair, watched him 
lying back in his easy-chair, as he stretched out his legs on 
the hearth-rug, and said, with the amused look that Eugene 
Wrayburn could always awaken in him without seeming to 
try or care : 

“ Anyhow, your vagaries have increased the bill.” 

“ Calls the domestic virtues vagaries! ” exclaimed Eugene, 
raising his eyes to the ceiling. 

“ This very complete little kitchen of ours,” said Mortimer, 
“ in which nothing will ever be cooked ” 

“ My dear, dear Mortimer,” returned his friend, lazily 
lifting his head a little to look at him, “ how often have I 
pointed out to you that its moral influence is the important 
thing?” 

“Its moral influence on this fellow!” exclaimed Light- 
wood, laughing. 

“ Do me the favour,” said Eugene, getting out of his chair 
wdth much gravity, “ to come and inspect that feature of 
our establishment which you rashly disparage.” With that, 
taking up a candle, he. conducted his chum into the fourth 
room of the set of chambers — a little narrow room — which 
was very completely and neatly fitted as a kitchen. “ See,” 
said Eugene, “ miniature flour-barrel, rolling-pin, spice-box, 
shelf of brown jars, chopping-board, coffee-mill, dresser 
elegantly furnished with crockery, saucepans and pans, 
roasting-jack, a charming kettle, an armoury of dish-covers. 
The moral influence of these objects, in forming the domestic 
virtues, may have an immense influence upon me; not upon 
you, for you are a hopeless case, but upon me. In fact, I 
have an idea that I feel the domestic virtues already forming. 


318 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Do me the favour to step into iny bedroom. Secretaire, you 
see, and abstruse set of solid mahogany pigeon-holes, one for 
every letter of the alphabet. To what use do I devote them ? 
I receive a bill — say from Jones. I docket it neatly, at the 
secretaire, Jones, and I put it into pigeon-hole J. It’s the 
next thing to a receipt and is quite as satisfactory to ine. 
And I very much wish, Mortimer,” sitting on his bed, with 
the air of a philosopher lecturing a disciple, “ that my ex- 
ample might induce you to cultivate habits of punctuality 
and method; and, by means of the moral influences with 
which I have surrounded you, to encourage the formation of 
the domestic virtues.” 

Mortimer laughed again, with his usual commentaries of 
“ How can you be so ridiculous, Eugene! ” and ‘‘ What an 
absurd fellow you are! ” but when his laugh was out, there 
was something serious, if not anxious, in his face. Despite 
that pernicious assumption of lassitude and indifference 
which had become his second nature, he was strongly attached 
to his friend. He had founded himself upon Eugene when 
they were yet boys at school; and at this hour imitated him 
no less, admired him no less, loved him no less, than in 
those departed days. 

“ Eugene,” said he, “ if I could find you in earnest for a 
minute, I would try to say an earnest word to you.” 

“ An earnest word ? ” repeated Eugene. “ The moral in- 
fluences are beginning to work. Say on.” 

“ Well, I will,” returned the other, “ though you are not 
earnest yet.” 

“ In this desire for earnestness,” murmured Eugene, with 
the air of one who was meditating deeply, I trace the 
happy influenees of the little flour-barrel and the coffee-mill. 
Gratifying.” 

“ Eugene,” resumed Mortimer, disregarding the light 
interruption, and laying a hand upon Eugene’s shoulder, as 
he, Mortimer, stood before him seated on his bed, “ you are 
withholding something from me.” 

Eugene looked at him, but said nothing. 

“All this past summer, you have been withholding some- 
thing from me. Before we entered on our boating vacation 
you were as bent upon it as I have seen you upon anything 


A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER 


319 


since we first rowed together. But you cared very little for 
it when it came, often found it a tie and a drag upon you, 
and were constantly away. Now it was well enough half- 
a-dozen times, a dozen times, twenty times, to say to me in 
your own odd manner, which I know so well and like so much, 
that your disappearances were precautions against our 
boring one another; but of course after a short while I began 
to know that they covered something. I don’t ask what it 
is, as you have not told me; but the fact is so. Say, is it 
not?” 

“ I give you my word of honour, Mortimer,” returned 
Eugene, after a serious pause of a few moments, “ that I 
don’t know’.” 

“ Don’t know, Eugene? ” 

‘‘ Upon my soul, don’t know. I know less about myself 
than about most people in the world, and I don’t know.” 

“You have some design in your mind? ” 

“ Have I ? I don’t think I have.” 

“ At any rate, you have some subject of interest there 
which used not to be there ? ” 

“ I really can’t say,” replied Eugene, shaking his head 
blankly, after pausing again to reconsider. “At times I have 
thought yes; at other times I have thought no. Now, I 
have been inclined to pursue such a subject; now, I have 
felt that it w’as absurd, and that it tired and embarrassed me. 
Absolutely, I can’t say. Frankly and faithfully, I would if 
I could.” 

So replying, he clapped a hand, in his turn, on his friend’s 
shoulder, as he rose from his seat upon the bed, and said: 

“You must take your friend as he is. You know what I 
am, my dear Mortimer. You know how dreadfully suscep- 
tible I am to boredom. You know that when I became 
enough of a man to find myself an embodied conundrum, 
I bored myself to the last degree by trying to find out what 
I meant. You know that at length I gave it up, and declined 
to guess any more. Then how can I possibly give you the 
answer that I have not discovered? The old nursery form 
runs, ‘ Riddle-me-riddle-me-ree, p’raps you can’t tell me 
what this may be ? ’ My reply runs, ‘ No. Upon my life, 
I can’t.’ ” 


320 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


So much of what was fantastically true to his own know- 
ledge of this utterly careless Eugene mingled with the answer, 
that Mortimer could not receive it as a mere evasion. Be- 
sides, it was given with an engaging air of openness, and 
of special exemption of the one friend he valued, from his 
reckless indifference. 

“ Come, dear boy! ’’ said Eugene. “ Let us try the effect 
of smoking. If it enlightens me at all on this question, I 
will impart unreservedly.” 

They returned to the room they had come from, and, find- 
ing it heated, opened a window. Having lighted their cigars, 
they leaned out of this window, smoking, and looking down 
at the moonlight, as it shone into the court below. 

“ No enlightenment,” resumed Eugene, after certain 
minutes of silence. “ I feel sincerely apologetic, my dear 
Mortimer, but nothing comes.” 

“ If nothing comes,” returned Mortimer, “ nothing can 
come from it. So I shall hope that this may hold good 
throughout, and that there may be nothing on foot. Nothing 
injurious to you, Eugene, or ” 

Eugene stayed him for a moment wdth his hand on his 
arm, while he took a piece of earth from an old flower-pot 
on the window-sill, and dexterously shot it at a little point 
of light opposite; having done which to his satisfaction, he 
said, “Or?” 

“ Or injurious to any one else.” 

“ How,” said Eugene, taking another little piece of earth, 
and shooting it with great precision at the former mark, 
“ how injurious to any one else? ” 

“ I donH know.” 

“ And,” said Eugene, taking, as he said the word, another 
shot, “ to whom else? ” 

“ I don’t know.” 

Checking himself with another piece of earth in his hand, 
Eugene looked at his friend inquiringly and a little sus- 
piciously. There was no concealed or half-expressed mean- 
ing in his face. 

“ Two belated wanderers in the mazes of the law,” said 
Eugene, attracted by the sound of footsteps, and glancing 
down as he spoke, “ stray into the court. They examine the 


A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER 


321 


door-posts of number one, seeking the name they want. Not 
finding it at number one, they come to number two. On 
the hat of wanderer number two, the shorter one, I drop 
this pellet. Hitting him on the hat, I smoke serenely, and 
become absorbed in contemplation of the sky.’' 

Both the wanderers looked up towards the window; but, 
after interchanging a mutter or two, soon applied themselves 
to the door-posts below. There they seemed to discover 
what they wanted, for they disappeared from view by enter- 
ing at the doorway. “ When they emerge,” said Eugene, 
“ you shall see me bring them both down; ” and so prepared 
two pellets for the purpose. 

He had not reckoned on their seeking his name, or Light- 
wood’s. But either the one or the other would seem to be 
in question, for now there came a knock at the door. “ I 
am on duty to-night,” said Mortimer, “ stay you where you 
are, Eugene.” Requiring no persuasion, he stayed there, 
smoking quietly, and not at all curious to know who knocked, 
until Mortimer spoke to him from within the room, and 
touched him. Then, drawing in his head, he found the 
visitors to be young Charley Hexam and the school- 
master; both standing facing him, and both recognised 
at a glance. 

“ You recollect this young fellow, Eugene ? ” said Mortimer. 

Let me look at him,” returned Wrayburn, coolly. “ Oh, 
yes, yes. I recollect him! ” 

He had not been about to repeat that former action of 
taking him by the chin, but the boy had suspected him of it, 
and had thrown up his arm with an angry start. Laughingly, 
Wrayburn looked to Lightwood for an explanation of this 
odd visit. 

He says he has something to say.” 

‘‘ Surely it must be to you, Mortimer.” 

So I thought, but he says no. He says it is to you.” 

“ Yes, I do say so,” interposed the boy. “ And I mean to 
say what I want to say, too, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn! ” 

Passing him with his eyes as if there were nothing where 
he stood, Eugene looked on to Bradley Headstone. With 
consummate indolence, he turned to Mortimer, inquiring: 
“And who may this other person be ? ” 


I 


322 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 

I am Charles Hexam’s friend,” said Bradley; “I am 
Charles Hexam’s schoolmaster.” 

“ My good sir, you should teach your pupils better man- 
ners,” returned Eugene. 

Composedly smoking, he leaned an elbow on the chimney- 
piece, at the side of the fire, and looked at the schoolmaster. 
It was a cruel look, in its cold disdain of him, as a creature 
of no worth. The schoolmaster looked at him, and that, 
too, was a cruel look, though of the different kind, that it 
had a raging jealousy and fiery wrath in it. 

Very remarkably, neither Eugene Wrayburn nor Bradley 
Headstone looked at all at the boy. Through the ensuing 
dialogue, those two, no matter who spoke, or whom was 
addressed, looked at each other. There was some secret, 
sure perception between them, which set them against one 
another in all ways. 

In some high respects, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn,” said 
Bradley, answering him with pale and quivering lips, “ the 
natural feelings of my pupils are stronger than my teach- 
ing.” 

“ In most respects, I dare say,” replied Eugene, enjoying 
his cigar, “ though whether high or low is of no importance. 
You have my name very correctly. Pray what is yours ? ” 

“ It cannot concern you much to know, but ” 

“ True,” interposed Eugene, striking sharply and cutting 
him short at his mistake, it does not concern me at all to 
know. I can say Schoolmaster, which is a most respectable 
title. You are right. Schoolmaster.” 

It was not the dullest part of this goad in its galling of 
Bradley Headstone, that he had made it himself in a moment 
of incautious anger. He tried to set his lips so as to prevent 
their quivering, but they quivered fast. 

“ Mr. Eugene Wrayburn,” said the boy, “ I want a word 
with you. I have wanted it so much, that we have looked 
out your address in the book, and we have been to your 
office, and we have come from your office here.” 

“ You have given yourself much trouble. Schoolmaster,” 
observed Eugene, blowing the feathery ash from his cigar. 

I hope it may prove remunerative.” 

“And I am glad to speak,” pursued the boy, “ in presence 
















\ 


A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER 323 

of Mr, Lightwood, because it was through Mr. Lightwood 
that you ever saw my sister.’^ 

For a mere moment, Wrayburn turned his eyes aside from 
the schoolmaster to note the effect of the last word on Morti- 
mer, who, standing on the opposite side of the fire, as soon 
as the word was spoken, turned his face towards the fire and 
looked down into it. 

“ Similarly, it was through Mr. lightwood that you ever 
saw her again, for you were with him on the night when my 
father was found, and so I found you with her on the next 
day. Since then, you have seen my sister often. You have 
seen my sister oftener and oftener. And I want to know 
why ? ” 

“Was this worth while. Schoolmaster?^* murmured 
Eugene, with the air of a disinterested adviser. “ So much 
trouble for nothing ? You should know best, but I think not.** 
“ I don*t know, Mr. Wrayburn,’* answered Bradley, with 

his passion rising, “ why you address me ** 

“ Don’t you? ” said Eugene. “ Then I won’t.” 

He said it so tauntingly in his perfect placidity, that the 
respectable right hand clutching the respectable hair-guard of 
the respectable watch could have wound it round his throat 
and strangled him with it. Not another word did Eugene 
deem it worth while to utter, but stood leaning his head 
upon his hand, smoking and looking imperturbably at the 
chafing Bradley Headstpne with his clutching right hand, 
until Bradley was well-nigh mad. 

“ Mr. Wrayburn,” proceeded the boy, “ we not only know 
this that I have charged upon you, but we know more. It 
has not yet come to my sister’s knowledge that we have 
found it out, but we have. We had a plan, Mr. Headstone 
and I, for my sister’s education, and for its being advised 
and overlooked by Mr. Headstone, who is a much more 
competent authority, whatever you may pretend to think, 
as you smoke, than you could produce if you tried. Then 
what do we find ? What do we find, Mr. Lightwood ? Why, 
we find that my sister is already being taught, without our 
knowing it. We find that while my sister gives an unwilling 
and cold ear to our schemes for her advantage — I, her 
brother, and Mr. Headstone, the most competent authority, 


324 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


as his certificates would easily prove, that could be produced — 
she is wilfully and willingly profiting by other schemes. Ay 
and taking pains, too, for I know what such pains are. And 
so does Mr. Headstone! Well! Somebody pays for this, is 
a thought that naturally occurs to us; who pays? We apply 
ourselves to find out, Mr. Lightwood, and we find that your 
friend, this Mr. Eugene Wrayburn here, pays. Then I ask 
him what right has he to do it, and what does he mean by it, 
and how comes he to be taking such a liberty without my 
consent, when I am raising myself in the scale of society by 
my own exertions and Mr. Headstone’s aid, and have no 
right to have any darkness cast upon my prospects, or any 
imputation upon my respectability, through my sister ? ” 

The boyish weakness of this speech, combined with its 
great selfishness, made it a poor one indeed. And yet Bradley 
Headstone, used to the little audience of a school, and unused 
to the larger ways of men, showed a kind of exultation in it. 

Now I tell Mr. Eugene Wrayburn,” pursued the boy, 
forced into the use of the third person by the hopelessness of 
addressing him in the first, “ that I object to his having any 
acquaintance at all with my sister, and that I request him to 
drop it altogether. He is not to take it into his head that 
I am afraid of my sister’s caring for him ” 

(As the boy sneered, the Master sneered, and Eugene blew 
off the feathery ash again.) 

“ — But I object to it, and that’s enough. I am more im- 
portant to my sister than he thinks. As I raise myself, I 
intend to raise her; she knows that, and she has to look to me 
for her prospects. Now I understand all this very well, and so 
does Mr. Headstone. My sister is an excellent girl, but she 
has some romantic notions; not about such things as your 
Mr. Eugene Wrayburns, but about the death of my father 
and other matters of that sort. Mr. Wrayburn encourages 
those notions to make himself of importance, and so she thinks 
she ought to be grateful to him, and perhaps even likes to be. 
Now I don’t choose her to be grateful to him, or to be grate- 
ful to anybody but me, except Mr. Headstone. And I tell 
Mr. Wrayburn that if he don’t take heed of what I say, it 
will be worse for her. Let him turn that over in his memory, 
and make sure of it. Worse for her! ” 


A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER 325 

A pause ensued, in which the schoolmaster looked very 
awkward. 

“ May I suggest, Schoolmaster,” said Eugene, removing his 
fast-waning cigar from his lips to glance at it, “ that you can 
now take your pupil away ? ” 

“ And Mr. Lightwood,” added the boy, with a burning face, 
under the flaming aggravation of getting no sort of answer 
or attention, “ I hope you’ll take notice of what I have said 
to your friend, and of what your friend has heard me say, 
word by word, whatever he pretends to the contrary. You 
are bound to take notice of it, Mr. Lightwood, for, as I have 
already mentioned, you first brought your friend into my 
sister’s company, and but for you we never should have seen 
him. Lord knows none of us ever wanted him, any more 
than any of us will ever miss him. Now Mr. Headstone, as 
Mr. Eugene Wrayburn has been obliged to hear what I 
had to say, and couldn’t help himself, and as I have said 
it out to the last word, we have done all we wanted to do, 
and may go.” 

“ Go down-stairs, and leave me a moment, Hexam,” he 
returned. The boy complying with an indignant look and 
as much noise as he could make, swung out of the room; and 
Lightwood went to the window, and leaned there, looking out. 

“You think me of no more value than the dirt under your 
feet,” said Bradley to Eugene, speaking in a carefully weighed 
and measured tone, or he could not have spoken at all. 

“ I assure you, Schoolmaster,” replied Eugene, “ I don’t 
think about you.” 

“ That’s not true,” returned the other; “ you know better.” 

“ That’s coarse,” Eugene retorted; “ but you don’t know 
better.” 

“ Mr. Wrayburn, at least I know very well that it would be 
idle to set myself against you in insolent words or overbearing 
manners. That lad who has just gone out could put you to 
shame in half-a-dozen branches of knowledge in half an hour, 
but you can throw him aside like an inferior. You can do as 
much by me, I have no doubt, beforehand.” 

“ Possibly,” remarked Eugene. 

“ But I am more than a lad,” said Bradley, with his clutch- 
ing hand, and I will be heard, sir.” 


326 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ As a schoolmaster,” said Eugene, “ you are always being 
heard. That ought to content you.” 

But it does not content me,” replied the other, white with 
passion. “ Do you suppose that a man, in forming himself 
for the duties I discharge, and in watching and repressing 
himself daily to discharge them well, dismisses a man’s 
nature ? ” 

“ I suppose you,” said Eugene, “ judging from what I see 
as I look at you, to be rather too passionate for a good school- 
master.” As he spoke, he tossed away the end of his 
cigar. 

“ Passionate with you, sir, I admit I am. Passionate with 
you, sir, I respect myself for being. But I have not Devils 
for my pupils.” 

“For your Teachers, I should rather say,” replied Eugene. 

“ Mr. Wrayburn.” 

“ Schoolmaster.” 

“ Sir, my name is Bradley Headstone.” 

“ As you justly said, my good sir, your name cannot con- 
cern me. Now, what more?” 

“ This more. Oh, what a misfortune is mine,” cried 
Bradley, breaking off to wipe the starting perspiration from 
his face as he shook from head to foot, “ that I cannot so 
control myself as to appear a stronger creature than this, 
when a man who has not felt in all his life what I have felt 
in a day can so command himself I ” He said it in a very 
agony, and even followed it wdth an errant motion of his 
hands as if he could have torn himself. 

Eugene Wrayburn looked on at him, as if he found him 
beginning to be rather an entertaining study. 

“ Mr. Wrayburn, I desire to say something to you on my 
own part.” 

“ Come, come. Schoolmaster,” returned Eugene, with a 
languid approach to impatience as the other again struggled 
with himself; “ say what you have to say. And let me 
remind you that the door is standing open, and your young 
friend waiting for you on the stairs.” 

“ When I accompanied that youth here, sir, I did so wdth 
the purpose of adding, as a man wdiom you should not be 
permitted to put aside, in case you put him aside as a boy, 


A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER 327 

that his instinct is correct and right.” Thus Bradley Head- 
stone, with great effort and difficulty. 

“ Is that all ? ” asked Eugene. 

No, sir,” said the other, flushed and fierce. “ 1 strongly 
support him in his disapproval of your visits to his sister, 
and in his objection to your officiousness — and worse — in 
what you have taken upon yourself to do for her.” 

“ Is that all? ” asked Eugene. 

‘‘ No, sir. I determined to tell you that you are not justi- 
fied in these proceedings, and that they are injurious to his 
sister.” 

“ Are you her schoolmaster as well as her brother’s ? — Or 
perhaps you would like to be ? ” said Eugene. 

It was a stab that the blood followed, in its rush to Bradley 
Headstone’s face, as swiftly as if it had been dealt with a 
dagger. “ What do you mean by that ? ” was as much as he 
could utter. 

“ A natural ambition enough,” said Eugene, coolly. Far 
be it from me to say otherwise. The sister — who is some- 
thing too much upon your lips, perhaps- — is so very different 
from all the associations to which she has been used, and 
from all the low obscure people about her, that it is a very 
natural ambition.” 

“ Do you throw my obscurity in my teeth, Mr. Wray- 
burn ? ” 

That can hardly be, for I know nothing concerning it. 
Schoolmaster, and seek to know nothing.” 

“ You reproach me with my origin,” said Bradley Head- 
stone; “ you cast insinuations at my bringing-up. But I tell 
you, sir, I have worked my way onward, out of both and in 
spite of both, and have a right to be considered a better man 
than you, with better reasons for being proud.” 

‘‘ How I can reproach you with what is not within my 
knowledge, or how I can cast stones that were never in my 
hand, is a problem for the ingenuity of a schoolmaster to 
prove,” returned Eugene. “Is that all?” 

“ No, sir. If you suppose that boy ” 

“ Who really will be tired of waiting,” said Eugene, 
politely. 

“ If you suppose that boy to be friendless, Mr. Wraybum, 


328 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


you deceive yourself. I am his friend, and you shall find 
me so.” 

“ And you will find him on the stairs,” remarked Eu- 
gene. 

“You may have promised yourself, sir, that you could do 
what you chose here, because you had to deal with a mere 
boy, inexperienced, friendless, and unassisted. But I give 
you warning that this mean calculation is wrong. You have 
to do with a man also. You have to do with me. I will 
support him, and, if need be, require reparation for him. My 
hand and heart are in this cause, and are open to him.” 

“ And — quite a coincidence — the door is open,” re- 
marked Eugene. 

“ I scorn your shifty evasions, and I scorn you,” said the 
schoolmaster. “ In the meanness of your nature you revile 
me with the meanness of my birth. I hold you in contempt 
for it. But if you don’t profit by this visit, and act accord- 
ingly, you will find me as bitterly in earnest against you as 
I could be if I deemed you worth a second thought on my 
own account.” • 

With a consciously bad grace and stiff manner, as Wray- 
burn looked so easily and calmly on, he went out with these 
words, and the heavy door closed like a furnace-door upon 
his red and white heats of rage. 

“ A curious monomaniac,” said Eugene. “ The man seems 
to believe that everybody was acquainted with his mother! ” 

Mortimer Lightwood being still at the window, to which 
he had in delicacy withdrawn, Eugene called to him, and he 
fell to slowly pacing the room. 

“ My dear fellow,” said Eugene, as he lighted another 
cigar, “ I fear my unexpected visitors have been troublesome. 
If as a set-off (excuse the legal phrase from a baTrister-at-law) 
you would like to ask Tippins to tea, I pledge myself to make 
love to her.” 

“ Eugene, Eugene, Eugene,” replied Mortimer, still pacing 
the room, “ I am sorry for this. And to think that I have 
been so blind! ” 

“ How blind, dear boy? ” inquired his unmoved friend. 

“ What were your words that night at the river-side public 
house? ” said Lightwood, stopping. “ What was it that yov 


A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER 329 

asked me ? Did I feel like a dark combination of traitor and 
pickpocket when I thought of that girl? ” 

I seem to remember the expression,” said Eugene. 

“ How do you feel when you think of her just now ? ” 

His friend made no direct reply, but observed, after a few 
whiffs of his cigar, Don’t mistake the situation. There is 
no better girl in all this London than Lizzie Hexam. There 
is no better among my people at home; no better among 
your people.” 

“Granted. What follows ? ” 

“ There,” said Eugene, looking after him dubiously as he 
paced away to the other end of the room, “ you put me again 
upon guessing the riddle that I have given up.” 

“ Eugene, do you design to capture and desert this girl? ” 

“ My dear fellow, no.” 

“ Do you design to marry her?” 

“ My dear fellow, no.” 

“ Do you design to pursue her? ” 

“ My dear fellow, I don’t design anything. I have no 
design whatever. I am incapable of designs. If I conceived 
a design, I should speedily abandon it, exhausted by the 
operation.” 

“O Eugene, Eugene!” 

“ My dear Mortimer, not that tone of melancholy reproach, 
I entreat. What can 1 do more than tell you all I know 
and acknowledge my ignorance of all I don’t know? How 
does that little old song go, which, under pretence of being 
cheerful, is by far the most lugubrious I ever heard in my 
life? 

‘ Away with melancholy, 

Nor doleful changes ring 
On life and human folly, 

But merrily merrily sing 

Fal la!» 


Don’t let us sing Fal la, my dear Mortimer (which is com- 
paratively unmeaning), but let us sing that we give up guessing 
the riddle altogether.” 

“ Are you in communication with this girl, Eugene, and is 
what these people say true?” 


330 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I concede both admissions to my honourable and learned 
friend/’ 

“Then what is to come of it? What are you doing? 
Where are you going ? ” 

“ My dear Mortimer, one would think the schoolmaster had 
left behind him a catechising infection. You are ruffled by 
the want of another cigar. Take one of these, I entreat. 
Light it at mine, which is in perfect order. So! Now do 
me the justice to observe that I am doing all I can towards 
self-improvement, and that you have a light thrown on those 
household implements which, when you only saw them as in 
a glass darkly, you were hastily — I must say hastily — in- 
clined to depreciate. Sensible of my deficiencies, I have sur- 
rounded myself with moral influences expressly meant to 
promote the formation of the domestic virtues. To those 
influences, and to the improving society of my friend from 
boyhood, commend me with your best wishes.” 

“ Ah, Eugene! ” said Lightwood, affectionately, now stand- 
ing near him, so that they both stood in one little cloud of 
smoke; “I would that you answered my three questions! 
What is to come of it? What are you doing? Where are 
you going ? ” 

“ And, my dear Mortimer,” returned Eugene, lightly 
fanning away the smoke with his hand for the better exposition 
of his frankness of face and manner, “ believe me, I would 
answer them instantly if I could. But to enable me to do 
so, I must first have found out the troublesome conundrum 
long abandoned. Here it is. Eugene Wrayburn.” Tapping 
his forehead and breast. “ Riddle-me, riddle-me-ree, perhaps 
you can’t tell me what this may be? — No, upon my life I 
can’t. I give it up!” 


CHAPTER VII 


IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED 

The arrangement between Mr. Boffin and his literary man, 
Mr. Silas Wegg, so far altered with the altered habits of Mr. 
Boffin’s life, as that the Roman Empire usually declined in 
the morning and in the eminently aristocratic family mansion, 
rather than in the evening, as of yore, and in Boffin’s Bower. 
There were occasions, however, when Mr. Boffin, seeking a 
brief refuge from the blandishments of fashion, would present 
himself at the Bower after dark, to anticipate the next sally- 
ing forth of Wegg, and would there, on the old settle, pursue 
the downward fortunes of those enervated and corrupted 
masters of the world who were by this time on their last 
legs. If W’egg had been worse paid for his office, or better 
qualified to discharge it, he would have considered these visits 
complimentary and agreeable; but, holding the position of 
a handsomely-remunerated humbug, he resented them. This 
was quite according to rule, for the incompetent servant, by 
whomsoever employed, is always against his employer. Even 
those born governors, noble and right honourable creatures, 
who have been the most imbecile in high places, have uni- 
formly shown themselves the most opposed (sometimes in 
belying distrust, sometimes in vapid insolence) to their 
employer. What is in such wise true of the public master 
and servant, is equally true of the private master and servant 
all the world over. 

When Mr. Silas Wegg did at last obtain free access to 
“ Our House,” as he had been wont to call the mansion 
outside which he had sat shelterless so long, and when he did 
at last find it in all particulars as different from his mental 
plans of it as according to the nature of things it well could 
be, that far-seeing and far-reaching character, by way of 


332 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


asserting himself and making out a case for compensation, 
affected to fall into a melancholy strain of musing over the 
mournful past: as if the house and he had had a fall in life 
together. 

“And this, sir,” Silas would vsay to his ])atron, sadly 
nodding his head and musing, “ was once Our House! This, 
sir, is the building from which I have so often seen those 
great creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, 
and Uncle Parker ” — whose very names were of his own 
inventing — “pass and repass! And has it come to this, 
indeed ! Ah dear me, dear me ! ” 

So tender were his lamentations, that the kindly Mr. Bofliii 
was quite sorry for him, and almost felt mistrustful that in 
buying the house he had done him an irreparable injury. 

Two or three diplomatic interviews, the result of great 
subtlety on Mr. Wegg’s part, but assuming the mask of 
careless yielding to a fortuitous combination of circumstances 
impelling him towards Clerkenwell, had enabled him to 
complete his bargain with Mr. Venus. 

“ Bring me round to the Bower,” said Silas, when the 
bargain was closed, “ next Saturday evening, and if a sociable 
glass of old Jamaikey w^arm should meet your views, I am 
not the man to begrudge it.” 

“ You are aw^are of my being poor company, sir,” replied 
Mr. Venus, “ but be it so.” 

It being so, here is Saturday evening come, and here is 
Mr. Venus come, and ringing at the Bower-gate. 

Mr. Wegg opens the gate, descries a sort of brown paper 
truncheon under Mr. Venus’s arm, and remarks, in a dry 
tone: “Oh ! I thought perhaps you might have come in a cab.” 

“ No, Mr. Wegg,” replies Venus. “ I am not above a 
parcel.” 

“ Above a parcel! No! ” says Wegg, with some dissatis- 
faction. But does not openly growl, “ a certain sort of parcel 
might be above you.” 

“ Here is your purchase, Mr. Wegg,” says Venus, politely 
handing it over, “ and I am glad to restore it to the source 
from whence it — flowed.” 

“ Thankee,” says Wegg. “ Now this affair is concluded, I 
may mention to you in a friendly way that I have my doubts 


IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED 333 

whether, if I had consulted a lawyer, you could have kept 
this article back from me. I only throw it out as a legal 
point.” 

“ Do you think so, Mr. Wegg? I bought you in open 
contract.” 

“You can’t buy human flesh and blood in this country, sir; 
not alive, you can’t,” says Wegg, shaking his head. “ Then 
query, bone?” 

“ As a legal point? ” asks Venus. 

“ As a legal point.” 

“ I am not competent to speak upon that, Mr. Wegg,” 
says Venus, reddening and growing something louder; “ but 
upon a point of fact I think myself conq:)etent to speak; and 
as a point of fact I would have seen you — will you allow me 
to say, further?” 

“ I wouldn’t say more than further, if I was you,” Mr. 
Wegg suggests paciflcally. 

“ — Before I’d have given that packet into your hand 
without being paid my price for it. I don’t pretend to know 
how the point of law may stand, but I’m thoroughly con- 
fident upon the point of fact.” 

As Mr. Venus is irritable (no doubt owing to his disap- 
pointment in love), and as it is not the cue of Mr. Wegg to 
have him out of temper, the latter gentleman soothingly 
remarks, “ I only put it as a little case; I only put it ha’por- 
thetically.” 

“ Then I’d rather, Mr. Wegg, you put it another time 
penn’orthetically,” is Mr. Venus’s retort, “for I tell you 
candidly I don’t like your little cases.” 

Arrived by this time in Mr. Wegg’s sitting-room, made 
bright on the chilly evening by gaslight and fire, Mr. Venus 
softens and compliments him on his abode; profiting by the 
occasion to remind Wegg that he (Venus) told him he had 
got into a good thing. 

“ Tolerable,” Wegg rejoins. “ But bear in mind, Mr. 
Venus, that there’s no gold without its alloy. Mix for 
yourself and take a seat in the chimbleyrcorner. Will you 
perform upon a pipe, sir ? 

“ I am but an indifferent performer, sir,” returns the other; 
“ but I’ll accompany you with a whiff or two at intervals.” 


334 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


So Mr. Venus mixes, and Wegg mixes; and Mr. Venus 
lights and puffs, and Wegg lights and puffs. 

“ And there’s alloy even in this metal of yours, Mr. Wegg, 
you was remarking ? ” 

“ Mystery,” returns Wegg. “ I don’t like it, Mr. Venus. I 
don’t like to have the life knocked out of former inhabitants 
of this house in the gloomy dark, and not know who did it.” 

“ Might you have any suspicions, Mr. Wegg? ” 

“ No,” returns that gentleman. ‘‘ I know who profits by it. 
But 1 have no suspicions.” 

Having said which, Mr. Wegg smokes and looks at the fire 
with a most determined expression of Charity; as if he had 
caught that cardinal virtue by the skirts, as she felt, it her 
painful duty to depart from him, and held her by main 
force. 

“ Similarly,” resumes Wegg, “ I have observations as I can 
offer upon certain points and parties; but I make no ob- 
jections, Mr. Venus. Here is an immense fortune drops from 
the clouds upon a person that shall be nameless. Here is a 
weekly allowance, with a certain weight of coals, drops from 
the clouds upon me. Which of us is the better man? Not 
the person that shall be nameless. That’s an observation of 
mine, but I don’t make it an objection. I take my allowance 
and my certain weight of coals. He takes his fortune. That’s 
the way it works.” 

“ It would be a good thing for me, if I could see things in 
the calm light you do, Mr. Wegg.” 

“Again look here,” pursued Silas, with an oratorical 
flourish of his pipe and his wooden leg: the latter havilig an 
undignified tendency to tilt him back in his chair; “ here’s 
another observation, Mr. Venus, unaccompanied with an 
objection. Him that shall be nameless is liable to be talked 
over. He gets talked over. Him that shall be nameless, 
having me at his right hand, naturally looking to be pro- 
moted higher, and you may perhaps say meriting to be 
promoted higher ” 

(Mr. Venus murmurs that he does say so.) 

“ — Him that shall be nameless, under such circumstances, 
passes me by, and puts a talking-over stranger above my 
head. Which of us two is the better man? Which of us 


IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED 335 


two can repeat most poetry ? Which of us two has, in the 
service of him that shall be nameless, tackled the Romans, 
both civil and military, till he has got as husky as if he’d 
been weaned and ever since brought up on sawdust? Not 
the talking-over stranger. Yet the house is as free to him 
as if it was his, and he has his room, and is put upon a foot- 
ing, and draws about a thousand a year. I am banished to 
the Bowser, to be found in it like a piece of furniture when- 
ever wanted. Merit, therefore, don’t win. That’s the way 
it works. I observe it, because I can’t help observing it, 
being accustomed to take a powerful sight of notice; but 
I don’t object. Ever here before, Mr. Venus? ” 

“ Not inside the gate, Mr. Wegg.” 

“ You’ve been as far as the gate then, Mr. Venus? ” 

“ Yes, Mr. Wegg, and peeped in from curiosity.” 

“Did you see anything?” 

“ Nothing but the dust-yard.” 

Mr. Wegg rolls his eyes all round the room in that ever 
unsatisfied quest of his, and then rolls his eyes all round Mr. 
Venus; as if suspicious of his having something about him 
to be found out. 

“ And yet, sir,” he pursues, “ being acquainted with old 
Mr. Harmon, one would have thought it might have been 
polite in you, too, to give him a call. And you’re naturally 
of a polite disposition, you are.” This last clause as a soften- 
ing compliment to Mr. Venus. 

“It is true, sir,” replies Venus, winking his weak eyes, 
and running his fingers through his dusty shock of hair, 
“ that I w’as so, before a certain observation soured me. 
You understand to what I allude, Mr. Wegg? To a certain 
written statement respecting not wishing to be regarded in 
a certain light. Since that, all is fled, save gall.” 

“ Not all,” says Mr. Wegg, in a tone of sentimental con- 
dolence. 

“ Yes, sir,” returns Venus, “ all! The world may deem it 
harsh, but I’d quite as soon pitch into my best friend as not. 
Indeed, I’d sooner.” 

Involuntarily making a pass with his wooden leg to guard 
himself as Mr. Venus springs up in the emphasis of this 
unsociable declaration, Mr. Wegg tilts over his back, chair 


336 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


and all, and is rescued by that harmless misanthrope, in 
a disjointed state and ruefully rubbing his head. 

“ Why, you lost your balance, Mr. Wegg,'’ says Venus, 
handing him his pipe. 

“ And about time to do it,” grumbled Silas, “ when a 
man’s visitors, without a word of notice, conduct themselves 
with the sudden wiciousness of Jacks-in-boxes ! Don’t come 
flying out of your chair like that, Mr. Venus! ” 

“ I ask your pardon, Mr. Wegg. I am so soured.” 

“ Yes, but hang it,” says Wegg argumentatively, “ a well- 
governed mind can be soured sitting! And as to being re- 
garded in lights, there’s bumpy lights as well as bony. In 
which,” again rubbing his head, “ I object to regard myself.” 

“ I’ll bear it in memory, sir.” 

” If you’ll be so good.” Mr. Wegg slowly subdues his 
ironical tone and his lingering irritation, and resumes his 
pipe. “ We were talking of old Mr. Harmon being a friend 
of yours.” 

“ Not a friend, Mr. Wegg. Only known to speak to, and 
to have a little deal with now and then. A very inquisitive 
character, Mr. Wegg, regarding w^hat was found in the dust. 
As inquisitive as secret.” 

“Ah! You found him secret?” returns Wegg, with a 
greedy relish. 

“ He had always the look of it, and the manner of it.” 

“Ah!” with another roll of his eyes. “As to w^hat was 
found in the dust now. Did you ever hear him mention 
how he found it, my dear friend ? Living on the mysterious 
premises, one would like to know. For instance, where he 
found things ? Or, for instance, how he set about it ? Whether 
he began at the top of the mounds, or whether he began at 
the bottom. Whether he prodded; ” Mr. Wegg’s pantomime 
is skilful and expressive here; “or whether he scooped? 
Should you say scooped, my dear Mr. Venus; or should 
you — as a man — say prodded ? ” 

“ I should say neither, Mr. Wegg.” 

“ As a fellow-man, Mr. Venus -mix again — why neither?” 

“ Because I suppose, sir, that what was found w^as found 
in the sorting and sifting. All the mounds are sorted and 
sifted?” 


IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED 337 


“ You shall see ’em and pass yoiir opinion. Mix again.” 

On each occasion of his saying “ mix again,” Mr. Wegg, 
with a hop on his wooden leg, hitches his chair a little nearer; 
more as if he were proposing that himself and Mr. Venus 
should mix again, than that they should replenish their 
glasses. 

” Living (as I said before) on the mysterious premises,” 
says Wegg when the other has acted on his hospitable en- 
treaty, “ one likes to know. Would you be inclined to say 
now — as a brother — that he ever hid things in the dust, 
as well as found ’em ? ” 

“ Mr. Wegg, on the whole, I should say he might.” 

Mr. Wegg claps on his spectacles, and admiringly surveys 
Mr. Venus from head to foot. 

“As a mortal equally with myself, whose hand I take in 
mine for the first time this day, having unaccountably over- 
looked that act so full of boundless confidence binding a 
fellow-creetur to a fellow-creetur,” says Wegg, holding 
Mr. Venus’s palm out, flat and ready for smiting, and now 
smiting it; “ as such — and no other — for I scorn all lowlier 
ties betwixt myself and the man walking with his face erect 
that alone I call my Twin — regarded and regarding in this 
trustful bond — what do you think he might have hid ? ” 

“ It is but a supposition, Mr. Wegg.” 

“ As a Being with his hand upon his heart,” cries Wegg; 
and the apostrophe is not the less impressive for the Being’s 
hand being actually upon his rum and water; “ put your 
supposition into language, and bring it out, Mr. Venus!” 

“ He was the species of old gentleman, sir,” slowly returns 
that practical anatomist, after drinking, “ that I should 
judge likely to take such opportunities as this place offered, 
of stowing away money, valuables, maybe papers.” 

“ As one that was ever an. ornament to human life,” says 
Mr.. Wegg, again holding out Mr. Venus’s palm as if he were 
going to tell his fortune by chiromancy, and holding his own 
up ready for smiting it when the time should come; “as 
one that the poet might have had his eye on, in writing the 
national naval words: 

^ Helm a-weather, now lay her close, 

Yard-arm and yard-arm she lies; 


338 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Again, cried 1. Mr. Venus, give her t’other dose, 

Man shrouds and grapple, sir, or she flies!’ 

— that is to say, regarded in the light of true British Oak, for 
such you are — explain, Mr. Venus, the expression ‘ papers’ I ” 

“ Seeing that the old gentleman was generally cutting off 
some near relation or blocking out some natural affection,” 
Mr. Venus rejoins, “ he most likely made a good many wills 
and codicils.” 

The palm of Silas Wegg descends with a sounding smack 
upon the palm of Venus, and Wegg lavishly exclaims, “ Twin 
in opinion equally with feeling! Mix a little more!” 

Having now hitched his wooden leg and his chair close in 
front of Mr. Venus, Mr. Wegg rapidly mixes for both, gives 
his visitor his glass, touches its rim with the rim of his own, 
puts his own to his lips, puts it down, and spreading his 
hands on his visitor’s knees, thus addresses him: 

Mr. Venus. It ain’t that I object to being passed over 
for a stranger, though I regard the stranger as a more than 
doubtful customer. It ain’t for the sake of making money, 
though money is ever welcome. It ain’t for myself, though 
I am not so haughty as to be above doing myself a good 
turn. It’s for the cause of right.” 

Mr. Venus passively winking his weak eyes both at once, 
demands: “ What is, Mr. Wegg? ” 

“ The friendly move, sir, that I now propose. You see 
the move, sir ? ” 

“ Till you have pointed it out, Mr. Wegg, I can’t say 
whether I do or not.” 

“ If there is anything to be found on these premises, let 
us find it together. Let us make the friendly move of agree- 
ing to look for it together. Let us make the friendly move 
of agreeing to share the profits of it equally betwixt us. 
In the cause of the right.” Thus Silas, assuming a noble air. 

“ Then,” says Mr. Venus, looking up, after meditating with 
his hair held in his hands, as if he could only fix his attention 
by fixing his head: “ if anything was to be unburied from 
under the dust, it would be kept a secret by you and me? 
Would that be it, Mr. Wegg? ” 

“ That would depend upon what it was, Mr. Venus. Say 


IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED 339 

it was money, or plate, or jewellery, it would be as much ours 
as anybody else’s.” 

Mr. Venus rubs an eyebrow, interrogatively. 

“In the cause of the right it would. Because it would be 
unknowingly sold with the mounds else, and the buyer would 
get what he was never meant to have, and never bought. 
And what would that be, Mr. Venus, but the cause of the 
wrong ? 

“ Say it was papers, ’’ Mr. Venus propounds. 

“According to what they contained we should offer to 
dispose of ’em to the parties most interested,” replies Wegg, 
promptly. 

“ In the cause of the right, Mr. Wegg? ” 

“ Always so, Mr. Venus. If the parties should use them in 
the cause of the wrong, that would be their act and deed, 
Mr. Venus. I have an opinion of you, sir, to which it is not 
easy to give mouth. Since I called upon you that evening 
when you were, as I may say, floating your powerful mind in 
tea, I have felt that you required to be roused with an object. 
In this friendly move, sir, you will have a glorious object to 
rouse you.” 

Mr. Wegg then goes on to enlarge upon what throughout 
has been uppermost in his crafty mind: — the qualifications of 
Mr. Venus for such a search. He expatiates on Mr. Venus’s 
patient habits and delicate manipulation; on his skill in 
piecing little things together; on his knowledge of various 
tissues and textures; on the likelihood of small indications 
leading him on to the discovery of great concealments. 
“ While as to myself,” says Wegg, “ I am not good at it. 
Whether I gave myself up to prodding, or whether I gave 
myself up to scooping, I couldn’t do it with that delicate 
touch so as not to show that I was disturbing the mounds. 
Quite different with you, going to work (as you would) in the 
light of a fellow-man, holily pledged in a friendly move to 
his brother man.” Mr. Wegg next modestly remarks on the 
want of adaptation in a wooden leg to ladders and such-like 
airy perches, and also hints at an inherent tendency in that 
timber fiction, when called into action for the purposes of a 
promenade on an ashy slope, to stick itself into the yielding 
foothold, and peg its owner to one spot. Then, leaving this 


340 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


part of the subject, he remarks on the special phenomenon 
that before his installation in the Bower, it was from Mr. 
\’enus that he first heard of the legend of hidden wealth in 
the INIounds; “ which,” he observes with a vaguely pious air, 
“ was surely never meant for nothing.” Lastly, he returns to 
the cause of the right, gloomily foreshadowing the possibility 
of something being unearthed to criminate Mr. Boffin (of 
whom he once more candidly admits it cannot be denied that 
he profits by a murder), and anticipating his denunciation 
by the friendly movers to avenging justice. And this, Mr. 
Wegg expressly points out, not at all for the sake of the 
reward — though it would be a want of princij)le not to 
take it. 

To all this, Mr. Venus, with his shock of dusty hair cocked 
after the manner of a terrier’s ears, attends profoundly. 
When Mr. Wegg, having finished, opens his arms wide, as if 
to show iVIr. Venus how bare his breast is, and then folds 
them pending a reply, IVIr. Venus winks at him with both 
eyes some little time before speaking. 

I see you have tried it by yourself, Mr. Wegg,” he says 
when he does speak. “ You have found out the difficulties 
by experience.” 

“ No, it can hardly be said that I have tried it,” replies 
Wegg, a little dashed by the hint. ” I have just skimmed 
it. Skimmed it.” 

” And found nothing besides the difficulties? ” 

Wegg shakes his head. 

I scarcely know what to say to this, Mr. Wegg,” observ’^es 
Venus, after ruminating for a while. 

“ Say yes,” Wegg naturally urges. 

“ If I wasn’t soured, my answer would be No. But being 
soured, Mr. Wegg, and driven to reckless madness and 
desperation, I suppose it’s Yes.” 

Wegg joyfully reproduces the two glasses, repeats the 
ceremony of clinking their rims, and inwardly drinks with 
great heartiness to the health and success in life of the young 
lady who has reduced ]\Ir. Venus to his present convenient 
state of mind. 

The articles of the friendly move are then severally recited 
and agreed upon. They are but secrecy, fidelity, and perse- 


IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED 341 


verance. The Bower to be always free of access to Mr. Venus 
for his researches, and every precaution to be taken against 
their attracting observation in the neighbourhood. 

“ There’s a footstep! ” exclaims Venus. 

“ Where ?^’ cries Wegg, starting. 

‘'Outside. St!” 

They are in the act of ratifying the treaty of friendly move 
by shaking hands upon it. They softly break off, light their 
pipes, which have gone out, and lean back in their chairs. 
No doubt a footstep. It approaches the window, and a hand 
taps at the glass. “ Come in! ” calls Wegg; meaning come 
round by the door. But the heavy old-fashioned sash is 
slowly raised, and a head slowly looks in out of the dark 
background of night. 

“ Pray is Mr. Silas Wegg here? Oh! I see him! ” 

The friendly movers might not have been quite at their 
ease, even though the visitor had entered in the usual manner. 
But leaning on the breast-high window, and staring in out of 
the darkness, they find the visitor extremely embarrassing. 
Especially Mr. Venus: who removes his pipe, draws back his 
head, and stares at the starer, as if it were his own Hindoo 
baby come to fetch him home. 

“ Good evening, Mr. Wegg. The yard -gate lock should be 
looked to, if you please; it don’t catch.” 

“ Is it Mr. Rokesmith? ” falters Wegg. 

“ It is Mr. Rokesmith. Don’t let me disturb you. I am 
not coming in. I have only a message for you, which I 
undertook to deliver on my way home to my lodgings. I was 
in two minds about coming beyond the gate without ringing: 
not knowing but you might have a dog about.” 

“ I wish I had,” mutters Wegg, with his back turned as he 
rose from his chair. “St! Hush! The talking-over stranger, 
Mr. Venus.” 

“ Is that any one I know? ” inquires the staring Secretary. 

“ No, Mr. Rokesmith. Friend of mine. Passing the 
evening with me.” 

“ Oh! I beg his pardon. Mr. Boffin wishes you to know 
that he does not expect you to stay at home any evening on 
the chance of his coming. It has occurred to him that he 
may, without intending it, have been a tie upon you. In 


342 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


future, if he should come without notice, he will take his 
chance of finding you, and it will be all the same to him if 
he does not. I undertook to tell you on my way. That’s 
all.” 

With that, and Good night,” the Secretary lowers the 
window and disappears. They listen, and hear his footsteps 
go back to the gate, and hear the gate close after him. 

“And for that individual, Mr. Venus,” remarks Wegg, 
when he is fully gone, “ I have been passed over! Let me 
ask you what you think of him ? ” 

Apparently Mr. Venus does not know what to think of 
him, for he makes sundry efforts to reply, without delivering 
himself of any other articulate utterance than that he has “ a 
singular look.” 

“A double look, you mean, sir,” rejoins Wegg, playing 
bitterly upon the word. “ That’s his look. Any amount of 
singular look for me, but not a double look! That’s an 
underhanded mind, sir.” 

“ Do you say there’s something against him ? ” Venus asks. 

“Something against him? ” repeats Wegg. “Something? 
What would the relief be to my feelings — as a fellow-man ~ 
if I wasn’t the slave of truth, and didn’t feel myself com- 
pelled to answer. Everything! ” 

See into what wonderful maudlin refuges featherless 
ostriches plunge their heads! It is such unspeakable moral 
compensation to Wegg to be overcome by the consideration 
that Mr. Rokesmith has an underhanded mind! 

“ On this starlight night, Mr. Venus,” he remarks, wEen he 
is showing that friendly mover out across the yard, and both 
are something the wmrse for mixing again and again: “ on 
this starlight night to think that talking-over strangers, and 
underhanded minds, can go walking home under the sky, as 
if they was all square! ” 

“ The spectacle of those orbs,” says Mr. Venus, gazing 
upward wdth his hat fumbling off, “ brings heavy on me her 
crushing wmrds that she did not wish to regard herself nor 
yet to be regarded in that ” 

“I know! I know! You needn’t repeat ’em,” says Wegg, 
pressing his hand. “ Rut think how those stars steady me 
in the cause of the right against some that shall be nameless. 


IN WHICH A FRIENDI^Y MOVE IS ORIGINATED 343 

It isn’t that I bear malice. But see how they glisten with 
old remembrances! Old remembrances of what, sir?” 

Mr. Venus begins drearily replying, “ Of her words, in her 
own handwriting, that she does not wish to regard herself, 

nor yet ” when Silas cuts him short with dignity. 

“ No, sir! Remembrances of Our House, of Master 
George, of Aunt Jane, of Uncle Parker, all laid waste! All 
offered up sacrifices to the minion of fortune and the worm 
of the hour! ” 


CHAPTER VIII 


IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS 

The minion of fortune and the worm of the hour, or in less 
3utting language, Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, the Golden 
Dustman, had become as much at home in his eminently 
aristocratic family mansion as he was likely ever to be. He 
could not but feel that, like an eminently aristocratic family 
cheese, it was much too large for his wants, and bred an 
infinite amount of parasites; but he was content to regard 
this drawback on his property as a sort of perpetual Legacy 
Duty. He felt the more resigned to it, forasmuch as IMrs. 
Boffin enjoyed herself completely, and Miss Bella was de- 
lighted. 

That young lady was, no doubt, an acquisition to the 
Boffins. She was far too pretty to be unattractive anywhere, 
and far too quick of perception to be below the tone of her 
new career. Whether it improved her heart might be a 
matter of taste that was open to question: but as touching 
another matter of taste, its improvement of her appearance 
and manner, there could be no question whatever. 

And thus it soon came about that Miss Bella began to set 
Mrs. Boffin right; and even further, that Miss Bella began 
to feel ill at ease, and as it were responsible, when she saw 
Mrs. Boffin going wrong. Not that so sweet a disposition 
and so sound a nature could ever go very wrong even among 
the great visiting authorities who agreed that the Boffins 
were “ charmingly vulgar ” (which for certain was not their 
own case in saying so), but that when she made a slip on 
the social ice on which all the children of Podsnappery, with 
genteel souls to be saved, are required to skate in circles, or 
to slide in long rows, she inevitably tripped Miss Bella up 
(so that young lady felt), and caused her to experience gi-eat 


IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS 345 


confusion under the glances of the more skilful performers 
engaged in those ice-exercises. 

At Miss Bella’s time of life it was not to be expected that 
she should examine herself very closely on the congruity or 
stability of her position in Mr. Boffin’s house. And as she 
had never been sparing of complaints of her old home when 
she had no other to compare it with, so there was no novelty 
of ingratitude or disdain in her very much preferring her 
new one. 

“An invaluable man is Rokesmith,” saicj Mr. Boffin, after 
some two or three months. “ But I can’t quite make him 
out.” 

Neither could Bella, so she found the subject rather inter- 
esting. 

“ He takes more care of my affairs, morning, noon, and 
night,” said Mr. Boffin, “ than fifty other men put together 
either could or would ; and yet he has ways of his own that 
are like tying a scaffolding-pole right across the road, and 
bringing me up short when I am almost a-walking arm-in- 
arm with him.” 

“ May I ask how so, sir? ” inquired Bella. 

“ Well, my dear,” said Mr. Boffin, “ he won’t meet any 
company here, but you. When we have visitors, I should 
wish him to have his regular place at the table like ourselves ; 
but no, he won’t take it.” 

“ If he considers himself above it,” said Miss Bella, with 
an airy toss of her head, “ I should leave him alone.” 

“ It ain’t that, my dear,” replied Mr. Boffin, thinking it 
over. “ He don’t consider himself above it.” 

“ Perhaps he considers himself beneath it,” suggested Bella. 
“ If so, he ought to know best.” 

“ No, my dear; nor it ain’t that, neither. No,” repeated 
Mr. Boffin, with a shake of his head, after again thinking it 
over; “ Rokesmith’s a modest man, but he don’t consider 
himself beneath it.” 

“ Then what does he consider, sir ? ” asked Bella. 

“ Dashed if I know! ” said Mr. Boffin. “ It seemed at first 
as if it was only Lightwood that he objected to meet. And 
now it seems to be everybody, except you.” 

“ Oho! ” thought Miss Bella. “ In — deed! Thafs it, is 


346 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


it! For Mr. Mortimer Lightwood had dined there two or 
three times, and she had met him elsewhere, and he had 
shown her some attention. “ Rather cool in a Secretary — 
and Pa’s lodger — to make me the subject of his jealousy! ” 

That Pa’s daughter should be so contemptuous of Pa’s 
lodger was odd; but there were odder anomalies than that in 
the mind of the spoilt girl; the doubly spoilt girl; spoilt first 
by poverty, and then by wealth. Be it this history’s part, 
however, to leave them to unravel themselves. 

“ A little too much, I think,” Miss Bella reflected scorn- 
fully, “ to have Pa’s lodger laying claim to me, and keeping 
eligible people off! A little too much, indeed, to have the 
opportunities opened to me by Mr. and Mrs. Boffin appro- 
priated by a mere Secretary and Pa’s lodger! ” 

Yet it was not so very long ago that Bella had been^ flut- 
tered by the discovery that this same Secretary and lodger 
seemed to like her. Ah! but the eminently aristocratic 
mansion and Mrs. Boffin’s dressmaker had not come into 
play then. 

In spite of his seemingly retiring manners, a very intrusive 
person, this Secretary and lodger, in Miss Bella’s opinion. 
Always a light in his office-room when w^e came home from 
the play or Opera, and he always at the carriage-door to 
hand us out. Always a provoking radiance too on Mrs. Boffin’s 
face, and an abominably cheerful reception of him, as if it 
were possible seriously to approve what the man had in his 
mind ! 

“ You never charge me, Miss Wilfer,” said the Secretary, 
encountering her by chance alone in the great drawing-room, 
“ with commissions for home. I shall always be happy to 
execute any commands you may have in that direction.” 

“ Pray what may you mean, Mr. Rokesmith? ” inquired 
Miss Bella, with languidly drooping eyelids. 

“By home? I mean your father’s house at Holloway.” 

She coloured under the retort — so skilfully thrust, that 
the words seemed to be merely a plain answer, given in 
plain good faith — and said, rather more emphatically and 
sharply; 

“ What commissions and commands are you speaking 
off” 




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t 


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X 


I k 


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IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS 347 

“ Only such little words of remembrance as I assume you 
send somehow or other,” replied the Secretary, with his 
former air. “ It would be a pleasure to me if you would 
make me the bearer of them. As you know, I come and go 
between the two houses every day.” 

“You needn't remind me of that, sir.” 

She was too quick in this petulant sally against “ Pa’s 
lodger; ” and she felt that she had been so when she met his 
quiet look. 

“ They don’t send many — what was your expression ? — • 
words of remembrance to tiu ” said Bella, making haste to 
take refuge in ill-usage. 

“ They frequently ask me about you, and I give them such 
slight intelligence as I can.” 

“ I hope it’s truly given,” exclaimed Bella. 

“ I hope you cannot doubt it, for it would be very much 
against you, if you could.” 

“ No, I do not doubt it. I deserve the reproach, which is 
very just indeed. I beg your pardon, Mr. Rokesmith.” 

“ I should beg you not to do so, but that it shows you 
to such admirable advantage,” he replied, with earnestness. 
“ Forgive me; I could not help saying that. To return to 
what I have digressed from, let me add that perhaps they 
think I report them to you, deliver little messages, and the 
like. But I forbear to trouble you, as you never ask me.” 

“ I am going, sir,” said Bella, looking at him as if he had 
reproved her, “ to see them to-morrow.” 

“ Is that,” he asked, hesitating, “ said to me, or to them? ” 

“ To which you please.” 

“ To both ? Shall I make it a message ? ” 

“ You can if you like, Mr. Rokesmith. Message or no 
message, I am going to see them to-morrow.” 

“ Then I will tell them so.” 

He lingered a moment, as though to give her the oppor- 
tunity of prolonging the conversation if she wished. As she 
remained silent, he left her. Two incidents of the little 
interview were felt by Miss Bella herself, when alone again, 
to be very curious. The first was, that he unquestionably 
left her with a penitent air upon her, and a penitent feeling 
in her heart. The second was, that she had not had an 


348 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


intention or a thought of going home, until she had announced 
it to him as a settled design. 

“ What can I mean by it, or what can he mean by it? 
was her mental inquiry. “ He has no right to any power 
over me, and how do I come to mind him when I don’t care 
for him?” 

Mrs. Boffin insisting that Bella should make to-morrow’s 
expedition in the chariot, she went home in great grandeur. 
Mrs. Wilfer and Miss Lavinia had speculated much on the 
probabilities and improbabilities of her coming in this gor- 
geous state, and on beholding the chariot from the window 
at which they were secreted to look out for it, agreed that it 
must be detained at the door as long as possible, for the 
mortification and confusion of the neighbours. Then they 
repaired to the usual family room, to receive Miss Bella with 
a becoming show of indifference. 

The family room looked very small and very mean, and 
the downward staircase by which it was attained looked very 
narrow and very crooked. The little house and all its arrange- 
ments were a poor contrast to the eminently aristocratic 
dwelling. “ I can hardly believe,” thought Bella, “ that I 
ever did endure life in this place.” 

Gloomy majesty on the part of Mrs. Wilfer, and native 
pertness on the part of Lavvy, did not mend the matter. 
Bella really stood in natural need of a little help, and she 
got none. 

“ This,” said Mrs. Wilfer, presenting a cheek to be kissed, 
as sympathetic and responsive as the back of the bowl of a 
spoon, “ is quite an honour! You will probably find your 
sister Lavvy grown, Bella.” 

“ Ma,” Miss Lavinia interposed, “ there can be no objection 
to your being aggravating, because Bella richly deserves it; 
but I really must request that you will not drag in such 
ridiculous nonsense as my having grown when I am past the 
growing age.” 

“ I grew myself,” Mrs. Wilfer sternly proclaimed, after I 
was married.” 

“ Very well, Ma,” returned Lavvy, “ then I think you had 
much better have left it alone.” 

The lofty glare with which the majestic woman received 


IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS 349 

this answer, might have embarrassed a less pert opponent, 
but it had no effect upon Lavinia: who leaving her parent 
to the enjoyment of any amount of glaring that she might 
deem desirable under the circumstances, accosted her sister, 
undismayed. 

“ I suppose you won’t consider yourself quite disgraced, 
Bella, if I give you a kiss? Well! And how do you do, 
Bella? And how are your Boffins? ” 

“Peace!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilfer. “Hold! 1 will nut 
suffer this tone of levity.” 

“ My goodness me! How are your Spoffins, then? ” said 
Lavvy, “since Ma so very much objects to your Boffins.” 

“ Impertinent girl! Minx! ” said Mrs. Wilfer, with dread 
severity. 

“ I don’t care whether I am a Minx, or a Sphinx,” returned 
Lavinia, coolly, tossing her head; “ it’s exactly the same 
thing to me, and I’d every bit as soon be one as the other; 
but I know this — I’ll not grow after I am married! ” 

“You will not? Foii will not? ” repeated Mrs. Wilfer, 
solemnly. 

“ No, Ma, I will not. Nothing shall induce me.” 

Mrs. Wilfer, having waved her gloves, became loftily 
pathetic. “But it was to be expected;” thus she spake. 
“ A child of mine deserts me for the proud and prosperous, 
and another child of mine despises me. It is quite fitting.” 

“ Ma,” Bella struck in, “ Mr. and Mrs. Boffin are pros- 
perous, no doubt; but you have no right to say they are 
proud. You must know very well that they are not.” 

“ In short, Ma,” said Lavvy, bouncing over to the enemy 
without a word of notice, “ you must know very well — or if 
you don’t, more shame for you! — that Mr. and Mrs. Boffin 
are just absolute perfection.” 

Truly,” returned Mrs. AYilfer, courteously receiving the 
deserter, “ it would seem that we are required to think so. 
And this, Lavinia, is my reason for objecting to a tone of 
levity. YHs. Boffin (of whose physiognomy I can never 
speak with the composure I would desire to preserve) and 
your mother are not on terms of intimacy. It is not for a 
moment to be supposed that she and her husband dare to 
presume to speak of this family as the Wilfers. I cannot 


350 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


therefore condescend to speak of them as the BoflSns. No; 
for such a tone — call it familiarity, levity, equality, or what 
you will — would imply those social interchanges which do 
not exist. Do I render myself intelligible ? ” 

Without taking the least notice of this inquiry, albeit 
delivered in an imposing and forensic manner, Lavinia 
reminded her sister, “ After all, you know, Bella, you haven’t 
told us how your Whatshisnames are.” 

I don’t want to speak of them here,” replied Bella, sup- 
})ressing indignation, and tapping her foot on the floor. 
“ They are much too kind and too good to be drawn into 
these discussions.” 

“Why put it so?” demanded Mrs. Wilfer, with biting 
sarcasm. “Why adopt a circuitous form of speech? It is 
polite and it is obliging; but why do it? Why not openly 
say that they are much too kind and too good for us f We 
understand the allusion. Why disguise the phrase ? ” 

“ Ma,” said Bella, with one beat of her foot, “ you are 
enough to drive a saint mad, and so is Lavvy.” 

“Unfortunate Lavvy!” cried Mrs. Wilfer, in a tone of 
commiseration. “ She always comes in for it. My poor 
child! ” But Lavvy, with the suddenness of her former de- 
sertion, now bounced over to the other enemy; very sharply 
remarking, “ Don’t patronise me, Ma, because I can take care 
of myself.” 

“ I only wonder,” resumed Mrs. Wilfer, directing her 
observations to her elder daughter, as safer on the whole 
than her utterly unmanageable younger, ‘‘ that you found 
time and inclination to tear yourself from Mr. and Mrs. 
Boffin, and come to see us at all. I only wonder that our 
claims, contending against the superior claims of Mr. and 
Mrs. Boffin, had any weight. I feel I ought to be thankful 
for gaining so much, in competition with Mr. and Mrs. 
Boffin.” (The good lady bitterly emphasized the first letter 
of the word Boffin, as if it represented her chief objection to 
the owners of that name, and as if she could have borne 
Doffin, Moffin, or Poffin much better.) 

“ Ma,” said Bella, angrily, “ you force me to say that I am 
truly sorry I did come home, and that I never will come 
home again, except when poor dear Pa is here. For Pa is 


IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS 351 

too magnanimous to feel envy and spite towards my generous 
friends, and Pa is delicate enough and gentle enough to 
remember the sort of little claim they thought I had upon 
them, and the unusually trying position in w’hich, through 
no act of my own, I had been placed. And I always did 
love poor dear Pa better than all the rest of you put together, 
and I always do and I always shall! ” 

Here Bella, deriving no comfort from her charming bonnet 
and her elegant dress, burst into tears. 

“ I think, R. W.,” cried Mrs. Wilfer, lifting up her eyes 
and apostrophising the air, “ that if you were present, it 
would be a trial to your feelings to hear your wife and the 
mother of your family depreciated in your name. But Fate 
has spared you this, R. W., whatever it may have thought 
proper to inflict upon her! ” 

Here Mrs. Wilfer burst into tears. 

“ I hate the Boffins! ” protested Miss Lavinia. I don’t 
care who objects to their being called the Boffins. I will 
call ’em the Boffins. The Boffins, the Boffins, the Boffins! 
And I say they are mischief-making Boffins, and I say the 
Boffins have set Bella against me, and 1 tell the Boffins 
to their faces:” which was not strictly the fact, but the 
young lady was excited: “ that they are detestable Boffins, 
disreputable Boffins, odious Boffins, beastly BoflSns. There! ” 

Here Miss Lavinia burst into tears. 

The front garden-gate clanked, and the Secretary w^as seen 
coming at a brisk pace up the steps. “ Leave me to open 
the door to him,” said Mrs Wilfer, rising with stately resig- 
nation as she shook her head and dried her eyes; “ we have 
at present no stipendiary girl to do so. We have nothing 
to conceal. If he sees these traces of emotion on our cheeks, 
let him construe them as he may.” 

With those words she stalked out. In a few moments she 
stalked in again, proclaiming in her heraldic manner, “ Mr. 
Rokesmith is the bearer of a packet for Miss Bella Wilfer.” 

Mr. Rokesmith followed close upon his name, and of 
course saw what was amiss. But he discreetly affected to see 
nothing, and addressed Miss Bella. 

“ Mr. Boffin intended to have placed this in the carriage 
for you this morning. He wished you to have it as a little 


352 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


keepsake he had prepared — it is only a purse, Miss Wilfer — ' 
but as he was disappointed in his fancy, I volunteered to 
come after you with it.” 

Bella took it in her hand, and thanked him. 

“ We have been quarrelling here a little, Mr. Rokesmith, 
but not more than we used; you know our agreeable ways 
among ourselves. You find me just going. Good-bye, 
mamma. Good-bye, Lavvy!” And with a kiss for each 
Miss Bella turned to the door. The Secretary would have 
attended her, but Mrs. Wilfer advancing and saying with 
dignity, “ Pardon me! Permit me to assert my natural 
right to escort my child to the equipage which is in wait- 
ing for her,” he begged pardon and gave place. It was a 
very magnificent spectacle indeed, to see Mrs. Wilfer throw 
open the house door, and loudly demand with extended 
gloves, “The male domestic of Mrs. Boffin!” To whom, 
presenting himself, she delivered the brief but majestic 
charge, “ Miss Wilfer. Coming out! ” and so delivered her 
over, like a female Lieutenant of the Tower relinquishing a 
State Prisoner. The effect of this ceremonial was for some 
quarter of an hour afterwards perfectly paralysing on the 
neighbours, and was much enhanced by the w’orthy lady 
airing herself for that term in a kind of splendidly serene 
trance on the top step. 

When Bella was seated in the carriage, she opened the 
little packet in her hand. It contained a pretty purse, and 
the purse contained a bank-note for fifty pounds. “ This 
shall be a joyful surprise for poor dear Pa,” said Bella, “ and 
ril take it myself into the City! ” 

As she was uninformed respecting the exact locality of the 
place of business of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles, but 
knew it to be near Mincing Lane, she directed herself to be 
driven to the corner of that darksome spot. Thence she 
dispatched “ the male domestic of Mrs. Boffin ” in search of 
the counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles, 
with a message importing that if R. Wilfer could come 
out, there was a lady waiting who would be glad to speak 
with him. The delivery of these mysterious words from 
the mouth of a footman caused so great an excitement in the 
counting-house, that a youthful scout was instantly appointed 


IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS 353 

to follow Rumty, observe the lady, and come in with his 
report. Nor was the agitation by any means diminished, 
when the scout rushed back with the intelligence that the 
lady was “ a slap-up gal in a bang-up chariot.” 

Rumty himself, with his pen behind his ear under his 
rusty hat, arrived at the carriage-door in a breathless con- 
dition, and had been fairly lugged into the vehicle by his 
cravat and embraced almost unto choking, before he recog- 
nised his daughter. “ My dear child! ” he then panted, in- 
coherently. “ Good gracious me! What a lovely woman 
you are! I thought you had been unkind and forgotten your 
mother and sister.” 

“ I have just been to see them, Pa dear.” 

“ Oh! and how — how did you find your mother? ” asked 
R. W., dubiously. 

“ Very disagreeable, Pa, and so was Lavvy.” 

“ They are sometimes a little liable to it,” observed the 
patient cherub; “ but I hope you made allowances, Bella, 
my dear ? ” 

“ No. I was disagreeable, too, Pa; we were all of us disa- 
greeable together. But I want you to come and dine with me 
somewhere. Pa.” 

“ Why, my dear, I have already partaken of a — if one 
might mention such an article in this superb chariot — of a — 
Saveloy,” replied R. Wilfer, modestly dropping his voice on 
the word, as he eyed the canary-coloured fittings. 

“Oh! That’s nothing. Pa!” 

“ Truly, it ain’t as much as one could sometimes wish it 
to be, my dear,” he admitted, drawing his hand across his 
mouth. “ Still, when circumstances over which you have 
no control, interpose obstacles between yourself and Small 
Germans, you can’t do better than bring a contented mind 
to bear on ” — again dropping his voice in deference to the 
chariot — “ Saveloys! ” 

“ You poor good Pa! Pa, do, I beg and pray, get leave 
for the rest of the day, and come and pass it with me! ” 

“ Well, my dear. I’ll cut back and ask for leave.” 

“ But before you cut back,” said Bella, who had already 
taken him by the chin, pulled his hat off, and begun to stick 
up his hair in her old way, “ do say that you are sure I am 


354 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


giddy and inconsiderate, but have never really slighted you, 
Pa.” 

“ My dear, I say it with all my heart. And might I like- 
wise observe,” her father delicately hinted, with a glance 
out at window, “ that perhaps it might be calculated to 
attract attention, having one’s hair publicly done by a lovely 
woman in an elegant turn-out in Fenchurch Street? ” 

Bella laughed and put on his hat again. But when his 
boyish figure bobbed away, its shabbiness and cheerful 
patience smote the tears out of her eyes. “ I hate that Secre- 
tary for thinking it of me,” she said to herself, “ and yet it 
seems half true ! ” 

Back came her father, more like a boy than ever, in his 
release from school. “All right, my dear. Leave given at 
once. Really very handsomely done ! ” 

“ Now where can we find some quiet place, Pa, in w^hich I 
can wait for you while you go on an errand for me, if I send 
the carriage aw^ay ? ” 

It demanded cogitation. “ You see, my dear,” he explained, 
“ you really have become such a very lovely woman, that it 
ought to be a very quiet place.” At length he suggested, 
“ Near the garden up by the Trinity House on Tower Hill.” 
So they were driven there, and Bella dismissed the chariot; 
sending a pencilled note by it to Mrs. Boffin, that she was 
with her father. 

“ Now, Pa, attend to what I am going to say, and promise 
and vow to be obedient.” 

“ I promise and vow, my dear.” 

“ You ask no questions. You take this purse; you go to 
the nearest place where they keep everything of the very very 
best, ready made; you buy and put on the most beautiful 
suit of clothes, the most beautiful hat, and the most beautiful 
pair of bright boots (patent leather. Pa, mind!) that are to 
be got for money ; and you come back to me.” 

“But, my dear Bella ” 

“ Take care. Pa! ” pointing her forefinger at him, merrily. 
“ You have promised and vowed. It’s perjury, you know.” 

There was water in the foolish little fellow’s eyes, but she 
kissed them dry (though her own were wet), and he bobbed 
away again. After half an hour he came back so brilliantly 


IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS 355 

transformed, that Bella was obliged to walk round him in 
ecstatic admiration twenty times, before she could draw her 
arm through his, and delightedly squeeze it. 

“ Now, Pa,” said Bella, hugging him close, take this lovely 
woman out to dinner.” 

“ Where shall we go, my dear? ” 

“Greenwich!” said Bella, valiantly. “And be sure you 
treat this lovely woman with everything of the best.” 

While they were going along to take boat, “ Don’t you 
wish, my dear,” said R. W., timidly, “ that your mother was 
here ? ” 

“ No, I don’t. Pa, for I like to have you all to myself to- 
day. I w^as always your little favourite at home, and you 
were always mine. We have run away together often, before 
now; haven’t we. Pa?” 

“Ah, to be sure we have! Many a Sunday w'hen your 
mother w^as — was a little liable to it,” repeating his former 
delicate expression after pausing to cough. 

“ Yes, and I am afraid I was seldom or never as good as 
I ought to have been. Pa. I made you carry me, over and 
over again, when you should have made me walk; and I 
often drove you in harness, when you would much rather 
have sat down and read your newspaper: didn’t I? ” 

“ Sometimes, sometimes. But Lor, what a child you w^ere! 
What a companion you were! ” 

“ Companion ? That’s just what I want to be to-day. Pa.” 

“You are safe to succeed, my love. Your brothers and 
sisters have all in their turns been companions to me, to a 
certain extent, but only to a certain extent. Your mother 
has, throughout life, been a companion that any man might 
— might look up to — and — and commit the sayings of, 
to memory — and — form himself upon — if he ” 

“ If he liked the model ? ” suggested Bella. 

“ We-ell, ye-es,” he returned, thinking about it, not quite 
satisfied with the phrase: “ or perhaps I might say, if it was 
in him. Supposing, for instance, that a man wanted to be 
always marching, he would find your mother an inestimable 
companion. But if he had any taste for walking, or should 
wish at any time to break into a trot, he might sometimes 
find it a little difficult to keep step with your mother. Or 


356 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


take it this way, Bella,” he added, after a moment’s reflection: 
“ Supposing that a man had to go through life, we won’t 
say with a companion, but we’ll say to a tune. Very good. 
Supposing that the tune allotted to him was the Dead March 
in Saul. Well. It would be a very suitable tune for par- 
ticular occasions — none better — but it would be difficult 
to keep time within the ordinary run of domestic transactions. 
For instance, if he took his supper after a hard day to the 
Dead March in Saul, his food might be likely to sit heavily 
on him. Or, if he was at any time inclined to relieve his 
mind by singing a comic song or dancing a hornpipe, and 
was obliged to do it to the Dead March in Saul, he might 
find himself put out in the execution of his lively intentions.” 

“ Poor Pa! ” thought Bella, as she hung upon his arm. 

“ Now what I wdll say for you, my dear,” the cherub 
pursued mildly and without a notion of complaining, “ is, 
that you are so adaptable. So adaptable.” 

“ Indeed I am afraid I have shown a wretched temper. Pa. 
I am afraid I have been very complaining, and very capri- 
cious. I seldom or never thought of it before. But when 
I sat in the carriage just now and saw you coming along the 
pavement, I reproached myself.” 

“ Not at all, my dear. Don’t speak of such a thing.” 

A happy and a chatty man was Pa in his new clothes that 
day. Take it for all in all, it was perhaps the happiest day 
he had ever known in his life; not even excepting that on 
which his heroic partner had approached the nuptial altar 
to the tune of the Dead March in Saul. 

The little expedition down the river was delightful, and 
the little room overlooking the river into which they were 
shown for dinner was delightful. Everything was delightful. 
The park was delightful, the punch was delightful, the dishes 
of fish were delightful, the wine was delightful. Bella was 
more delightful than any other item in the festival; drawing 
Pa out in the gayest manner; making a point of always 
mentioning herself as the lovely woman; stimulating Pa to 
order things, by declaring that the lovely woman insisted on 
being treated with them; and in short causing Pa to be 
quite enraptured with the consideration that he was the 
Pa of such a charming daughter. 


IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS 357 

And then, as they sat looking at the ships and steamboats 
making their way to the sea with the tide that was running 
down, the lovely woman imagined all sorts of voyages for 
herself and Pa. Now, Pa, in the character of owner of a 
lumbering square-sailed collier, was tacking away to New- 
castle, to fetch black diamonds to make his fortune with; 
now. Pa was going to China in that handsome three-masted 
ship, to bring home opium, with which he would for ever 
cut out Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles, and to bring 
home silks and shawls without end for the decoration of 
his charming daughter. Now, John Harmon’s disastrous 
fate was all a dream, and he had come home and found the 
lovely woman just the article for him, and the lovely woman 
had found him just the article for her, and they were going 
away on a trip, in their gallant bark, to look after their vines, 
with streamers flying at all points, a band playing on deck, 
and Pa established in the great cabin. Now, John Harmon 
was consigned to his grave again, and a merchant of immense 
wealth (name unknown) had courted and married the lovely 
woman, and he was so enormously rich that everything you 
saw upon the river sailing or steaming belonged to him, and 
he kept a perfect fleet of yachts for pleasure, and that little 
impudent yacht which you saw over there, with the great 
white sail, was called The Bella, in honour of his wife, and 
she held her state aboard when it pleased her, like a modern 
Cleopatra. Anon, there would embark in that troop-ship 
when she got to Gravesend, a mighty general, of large pro- 
perty (name also unknown), who wouldn’t hear of going 
to victory without his wife, and whose wife was the lovely 
woman, and she was destined to become the idol of all the 
red-coats and blue-jackets alow and aloft. And then again: 
you saw that ship being towed out by a steam-tug? Well! 
where did you suppose she was going to? She was going 
among the coral reefs and cocoa-nuts and all that sort of 
thing, and she was chartered for a fortunate individual of 
the name of Pa (himself on board, and much respected by 
all hands), and she was going, for his sole profit and advan- 
tage, to fetch a cargo of sweet-smelling woods, the most 
beautiful that ever were seen, and the most profitable that 
never were heard of, and her cargo would be a great fortune. 


358 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


as indeed it ought to be: the lovely woman who had pur- 
chased her and fitted her expressly for this voyage, being 
married to an Indian Prince, who was a Something-or-Other, 
and who wore Cashmere shawls all over himself, and dia- 
monds and emeralds blazing in his turban, and was beauti- 
fully coffee-coloured and excessively devoted, though a little 
too jealous. Thus Bella ran on merrily, in a manner per- 
fectly enchanting to Pa, who was as willing to put his head 
into the Sultan’s tub of water as the beggar-boys below the 
window were to put their heads in the mud. 

“ I suppose, my dear,” said Pa after dinner, “ we may 
come to the conclusion at home, that we have lost you for 
good?” 

Bella shook her head. Didn’t know. Couldn’t say. All 
she was able to report was, that she was most handsomely 
supplied with everything she could possibly want, and that 
whenever she hinted at leaving Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, they 
wouldn’t hear of it. 

“ And now. Pa,” pursued Bella, “ I’ll make a confession to 
you. I am the most mercenary little wretch that ever lived 
in the world.” 

” I should hardly have thought it of you, my dear,” re- 
turned her father, first glancing at himself, and then at the 
dessert. 

“ I understand what you mean, Pa, but it’s not that. It’s 
not that I care for money to keep as money, but I do care 
so much for what it will buy ! ” 

Really, I think most of us do,” returned R. W. 

“ But not to the dreadful extent that I do. Pa. O-o! ” 
cried Bella, screwing the exclamation out of herself with 
a twist of her dimpled chin. “ I am so mercenary! ” 

With a wistful glance R. W. said, in default of having 
anything better to say: “About when did you begin to feel 
it coming on, my dear ? ” 

‘‘ That’s it. Pa. That’s the terrible part of it. When 
I was at home, and only knew what it was to be poor, I 
grumbled, but didn’t so much mind. When I was at home 
expecting to be rich, I thought vaguely of all the great things 
I would do. But when I had been disappointed of my splen- 
did fortune, and came to see it from day to day in other hands, 


IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS 359 

and to have before my eyes what it could really do, then I 
became the mercenary little wretch I am.” 

” It’s your fancy, my dear.” 

“ I can assure you it’s nothing of the sort, Pa! ” said Bella, 
nodding at him, with her very pretty eyebrows raised as high 
as they would go, and looking comically frightened. “ It’s 
a fact. I am always avariciously scheming.” 

“Lor! But how?” 

“ I’ll tell you, Pa. I don’t mind telling you, because we 
have always been favourites of each other’s, and because you 
are not like a Pa, but more like a sort of a younger brother 
with a dear venerable chubbiness on him. And besides,” 
added Bella, laughing as she pointed a rallying finger at his 
face, “ because I have got you in my power. This is a secret 
expedition. If ever you tell of me, I’ll tell of you. I’ll tell 
Ma that you dined at Greenwich.” 

“ Well; seriously, my dear,” observed R. W., with some 
trepidation of manner, “ it might be as well not to mention 
it.” 

“Aha!” laughed Bella. “I knew you wouldn’t like it, 
sir! So you keep my confidence, and I’ll keep yours. But 
betray the lovely woman, and you shall find her a serpent. 
Now you may give me a kiss. Pa, and I should like to give 
your hair a turn, because it has been dreadfully neglected in 
my absence.” 

R. W. submitted his head to the operator, and the operator 
went on talking; at the same time putting separate locks of 
his hair through a curious process of being smartly rolled 
over her tw’o revolving forefingers, which were then suddenly 
pulled out of it in opposite lateral directions. On each of 
these occasions the patient winced and winked. 

“ I have made up my mind that I must have money. Pa. 
I feel that I can’t beg it, borrow it, or steal it; and so I have 
resolved that I must marry it.” 

R. W. cast up his eyes towards her, as well as he could 
under the operating circumstances, and said in a tone of 
remonstrance, “ My de-ar Bella.” 

“ Have resolved, I say. Pa, that to get money I must 
marry money. In consequence of which, I am always look- 
ing out for money to captivate.” 


360 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


My de-a-r Bella! ” 

“ Yes, Pa, that is the state of the case. If ever there was 
a mercenary plotter whose thoughts and designs were always 
in her mean occupation, I am the amiable creature. But 
I don’t care. I hate and detest being poor, and I won’t be 
poor if I can marry money. Now you are deliciously fluffy, 
Pa, and in a state to astonish the waiter and pay the bill.” 

“ But, my dear Bella, this is quite alarming at your age.” 

“ I told you so. Pa, but you wouldn’t believe it,” returned 
Bella, with a pleasant childish gravity. “ Isn’t it shocking ? ” 

‘‘ It would be quite so, if you fully knew what you said, 
my dear, or meant it.” 

“ Well, Pa, I can only tell you that I mean nothing else. 
Talk to me of love!” said Bella, contemptuously: though 
her face and figure certainly rendered the subject no incon- 
gruous one. “Talk to me of fiery dragons! But talk to 
me of poverty and wealth, and there indeed we touch upon 
realities.” 

“My de-ar, this is becoming Awful — ” her father was 
emphatically beginning: when she stopped him. 

“ Pa, tell me. Did you marry money? ” 

“You know I didn’t, my dear.” 

Bella hummed the Dead March in Saul, and said, after all 
it signified very little! But seeing him look grave and down- 
cast, she took him round the neck and kissed him back to 
cheerfulness again. 

“ I didn’t mean that last touch, Pa; it was only said in 
joke. Now mind! You are not to tell of me, and I’ll not 
tell of you. And more than that; I promise to have no secrets 
from you, Pa, and you may make certain that, whatever 
mercenary things go on, I shall always tell you all about 
them in strict confidence.” 

Fain to be satisfied with this concession from the lovely 
woman, R. W. rang the bell, and paid the bill. “ Now all 
the rest of this, Pa,” said Bella, rolling up the purse when 
they were alone again, hammering it small with her little 
fist on the table, and cramming it into one of the pockets of 
his new waistcoat, “ is for you, to buy presents with for 
them at home, and to pay bills with, and to divide as you 
like, and spend exactly as you think projjer. Last of all 


IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS 3G1 

take notice, Pa, that it’s not the fruit of any avaricious scheme. 
Perhaps if it was, your little mercenary wretch of a daughter 
wouldn’t make so free with it.” 

After which she tugged at his coat with both hands, and 
pulled him all askew in buttoning that garment over the 
precious waistcoat pocket, and then tied her dimples into 
her bonnet-strings in a very knowing way, and took him 
back to London. Arrived at Mr. Boffin’s door, she set him 
with his back against it, tenderly took him by the ears as con- 
venient handles for her purpose, and kissed him until he 
knocked muffied double knocks at the door with the back of 
his head. That done, she once more reminded him of their 
compact and gaily parted from him. 

Not so gaily however, but that tears filled her eyes as he 
went away down the dark street. Not so gaily, but that 
she several times said, “Ah, poor little Pa! Ah, poor dear 
struggling shabby little Pa! ” before she took heart to knock 
at the door. Not so gaily, but that the brilliant furniture 
seemed to stare her out of countenance as if it insisted on 
being compared with the dingy furniture at home. Not so 
gaily, but that she fell into very low spirits sitting late in 
her own room, and very heartily wept, as she wished, now 
that the deceased old John Harmon had never made a will 
about her, now that the deceased young John Harmon had 
lived to marry her. “ Contradictory things to wish,” said 
Bella, “ but my life and fortunes are so contradictory alto- 
gether that what can I expect myself to be ? ” 


CHAPTER IX 


IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL 

The Secretary, working in the Dismal Swamp betimes next 
morning, was informed that a youth waited in the hall who 
gave the name of Sloppy. The footman who communicated 
this intelligence made a decent pause before uttering the 
name, to express that it was forced on his reluctance by the 
youth in question, and that if the youth had had the good 
sense and good taste to inherit some other name it would 
have spared the feelings of him the bearer. 

“ Mrs. Boffin will be very well pleased,” said the Secretary 
in a perfectly composed way. “ Show him in.” 

Mr. Sloppy being introduced, remained close to the door: 
revealing in various parts of his form many surprising, con- 
founding, and incomprehensible buttons. 

“ I am glad to see you,” said John Rokesmith, in a cheerful 
tone of welcome. “ I have been expecting you.” 

Sloppy explained that he had meant to come before, but 
that the Orphan (of whom he made mention as Our Johnny) 
had been ailing, and he had waited to report him well. 

“ Then he is well now? ” said the Secretary. 

“ No, he ain’t,” said Sloppy. 

Mr. Sloppy having shaken his head to a considerable 
extent, proceeded to remark, that he thought Johnny “ must 
have took ’em from the Minders.” Being asked what he 
meant, he answered, them that come out upon him and 
partickler his chest. Being requested to explain himself, he 
stated that there was some of ’em wot you couldn’t kiver 
with a sixpence. Pressed to fall back upon a nominative 
case, he opined that they wos about as red as ever red could 
be. “ But as long as they strikes out’ards, sir,” continued 
Sloppy, “ they ain’t so much. It’s their striking in’ards 
that’s to be kep off.” 


IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL 363 


John Rokesmith hoped the child had had medical atten- 
dance ? Oh yes, said Sloppy, he had been took to the doctor’s 
shop once. And what did the doctor call it? Rokesmith 
asked him. After some perplexed reflection, Sloppy answered, 
brightening, “ He called it something as wos wery long for 
spots.” Rokesmith suggested measles. No,” said Sloppy, 
with confidence, “ ever so much longer than them, sir! ” 
(Mr. Sloppy was elevated by this fact, and seemed to consider 
that it reflected credit on the poor little patient.) 

“ Airs. Boffin will be sorry to hear this,” said Rokesmith. 

“ Mrs. Higden said so, sir, when she kept it from her, 
hoping as Our Johnny would work round.” 

“ But I hope he will? ” said Rokesmith, with a quick turn 
upon the messenger. 

“ I hope so,” answered Sloppy. “ It all depends on their 
striking in’ards.” He then went on to say that whether 
Johnny had “ took ’em ” from the Alinders, or whether the 
Minders had “ took ’em ” from Johnny, the Minders had 
been sent home and had “ got ’em.” Furthermore, that 
Airs. Higden’s days and nights being devoted to Our Johnny, 
who was never out of her lap, the whole of the mangling 
arrangements had devolved upon himself, and he had had 
“ rayther a tight time.” The ungainly piece of honesty 
beamed and blushed as he said it, quite enraptured with the 
remembrance of having been serviceable. 

“ Last night,” said Sloppy, “ when I was a-turning at the 
wheel pretty late, the mangle seemed to go like Our Johnny’s 
breathing. It begun beautiful, then as it went out it shook 
a little and got unsteady, then as it took the turn to come 
home it had a rattle-like and lumbered a bit, then it come 
smooth, and so it went on till I scarce know’d which was 
mangle and which was Our Johnny. Nor Our Johnny, he 
scarce know’d either, for sometimes when the mangle lumbers 
he says, ‘ Me choking. Granny! ’ and Mrs. Higden holds him 
up in her lap and says to me, ‘ Bide a bit. Sloppy,’ and we 
all stops together. And when Our Johnny gets his breath- 
ing again, I turns again, and we all goes on together.” 

Sloppy had gradually expanded with his description into 
a stare and a vacant grin. He now contracted, being silent, 
into a half-repressed gush of tears, and, under pretence of 


364 


OUK MUTUAL FRIEND 


being heated, drew the under part of his sleeve across his 
eyes with a singularly awkward, laborious, and roundabout 
smear. 

“ This is unfortunate,” said Rokesmith. “ I must go and 
break it to Mrs. Boffin. Stay you here. Sloppy.” 

Sloppy stayed there, staring at the pattern of the paper 
on the wall, until the Secretary and Mrs. Boffin came back 
together. And with Mrs. Boffin was a young lady (Miss 
Bella Wilfer by name) who was better worth staring at, it 
occurred to Sloppy, than the best of wall-papering. 

“ Ah, my poor dear pretty little John Harmon! ” exclaimed 
Mrs. Boffin. 

“Yes, mum,” said the sympathetic Sloppy. 

“ You don’t think he is in a very, very bad way, do you ? ” 
asked the pleasant creature with her wholesome cordiality. 

Put upon his good faith, and finding it in collusion with 
his inclinations. Sloppy threw back his head and uttered 
a mellifluous howl, rounded off with a sniff. 

“ So bad as that! ” cried Mrs. Boffin. “ And Betty Higden 
not to tell me of it sooner! ” 

“ I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,” answered 
Sloppy, hesitating. 

“ Of what, for Heaven’s sake? ” 

“ I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,” returned 
Sloppy with submission, “ of standing in Our Johnny’s light. 
There’s so much trouble in illness, and so much expense, and 
she’s seen such a lot of its being objected to.” 

“ But she never can have thought,” said Mrs. Boffin, “ that 
I would grudge the dear child anything? ” 

“ No, mum, but she might have thought (as a habit-like) of 
its standing in Johnny’s light, and might have tried to bring 
him through it unbeknownst.” 

Sloppy knew his ground well. To conceal herself in 
sickness, like a lower animal; to creep out of sight and coil 
herself away and die, had become this woman’s instinct. To 
catch up in her arms the sick child who was dear to her, and 
hide it as if it were a criminal, and keep off all ministration 
but such as her own ignorant tenderness and patience could 
supply, had become this woman’s idea of maternal love, 
fidelity, and duty. The shameful accounts we read, every 


IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL 365 


week in the Christian year, my lords and gentlemen and 
honourable boards, the infamous records of small official 
inhumanity, do not pass by the people as they pass by us. 
And hence these irrational, blind, and obstinate prejudices, so 
astonishing to our magnificence, and having no more reason 
in them — God save the Queen and Con-found their politics 
— no, than smoke has in coming from fire! 

“ It’s not a right place for the poor child to stay in,” said 
Mrs. Boffin. “ Tell us, dear Mr. Rokesmith, what to do for 
the best.” 

He had already thought what to do, and the consultation 
was very short. He could pave the way, he said, in half an 
hour, and then they would go down to Brentford. “ Pray 
take me,” said Bella. Therefore a carriage was ordered, of 
capacity to take them all, and in the meantime Sloppy was 
regaled, feasting alone in the Secretary’s room, with a com- 
plete realisation of that fairy vision — meat, beer, vegetables, 
and pudding. In consequence of which his buttons became 
more importunate of public notice than before, with the excep- 
tion of two or three about the region of the waistband, which 
modestly withdrew into a creasy retirement. 

Punctual to the time appeared the carriage and the Secre- 
tary. He sat on the box, and Mr. Sloppy graced the rumble. 
So to The Three Magpies as before: where Mrs. Boffin and 
Miss Bella were handed out, and whence they all went on 
foot to Mrs. Betty Higden’s. 

But on the way down they had stopped at a toy-shop, and 
had bought that noble charger, a description of whose points 
and trappings had on the last occasion conciliated the then 
worldly-minded orphan, and also a Noah’s ark, and also a 
yellow bird with an artificial voice in him, and also a mili- 
tary doll so well dressed that if he had only been of life-size his 
brother-officers in the Guards might never have found him 
out. Bearing these gifts, they raised the latch of Betty 
Higden’s door, and saw her sitting in the dimmest and 
furthest corner with poor Johnny in her lap. 

‘‘And how’s my boy, Betty?” asked Mrs. Boffin, sitting 
down beside her. 

“He’s bad! He’s bad!” said Betty. “I begin to be 
afeerd he’ll not be yours any more than mine. All others 


366 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


belonging to him have gone to the Power and the Glory, and 
I have a mind that they’re drawing him to them — leading 
him away.” 

“ No, no, no,” said Mrs. Boffin. 

“ I don’t know why else he clenches his little hand as if it 
had hold of a finger that I can’t see. Look at it,” said Betty, 
opening the wrappers in which the flushed child lay, and 
showing his small right hand lying closed upon his breast. 
“ It’s always so. It don’t mind me.” 

“ Is he asleep ? ” 

“ No, I think not. You’re not asleep, my Johnny ? ” 

“ No,” said Johnny, with a quiet air of pity for himself, 
and without opening his eyes. 

“ Here’s the lady, Johnny. And the horse.” 

Johnny could bear the lady with complete indifference, 
but not the horse. Opening his heavy eyes, he slowly broke 
into a smile on beholding that splendid phenomenon, and 
wanted to take it in his arms. As it was much too big, it 
was put upon a chair where he could hold it by the mane 
and contemplate it. Which he soon forgot to do. 

But Johnny murmuring something with his eyes closed, 
and Mrs. Boffin not knowing what, old Betty bent her ear 
to listen and took pains to understand. Being asked by her 
to repeat what he had said, he did so two or three times, 
and then it came out that he must have seen more than they 
supposed when he looked up to see the horse, for the murmur 
was, “Who is the boofer lady ? ” Now the boofer, or beauti- 
ful, lady was Bella; and whereas this notice from the poor 
baby would have touched her of itself, it was rendered 
more pathetic by the late melting of her heart to her poor 
little father, and their joke about the lovely woman. So 
Bella’s behaviour was very tender and very natural when she 
kneeled on the brick floor to clasp the child, and wffien the 
child, with a child’s admiration of what is young and pretty, 
fondled the boofer lady. 

“ Now, my good dear Betty,” said Mrs. Boffin, hoping that 
she saw her opportunity, and laying her hand persuasively 
on her arm; “ we have come to remove Johnny from this 
cottage to where he can be better taken care of.” 

Instantly, and before another word could be spoken, the 









4 










IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL 367 


old woman started up with blazing eyes, and rushed at the 
door with the sick child. 

“ Stand away from me, every one of ye!” she cried out 
wildly. “ I see what ye mean now. Let me go my way, all 
of ye. I’d sooner kill the Pretty, and kill myself.” 

“ Stay, stay! ” said Rokesmith, soothing her. “ You don’t 
understand.” 

“ I understand too well. I know too much about it, sir. 
I’ve run from it too many a year. No! Never for me, nor 
for the child, while there’s water enough in England to 
cover us! ” 

The terror, the shame, the passion of horror and repug- 
nance, firing the worn face and perfectly maddening it, would 
have been a quite terrible sight, if embodied in one old fel- 
low-creature alone. Yet it “ crops up ” — as our slang goes 
— my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, in other 
fellow-creatures rather frequently! 

“ It’s been chasing me all my life, but it shall never take 
me nor mine alive! ” cried old Betty. I’ve done with ye. 
I’d have fastened door and window and starved out, afore 
I’d ever have let ye in, if I had known what ye came 
for!” 

But, catching sight of Mrs. Boffin’s wholesome face, she 
relented, and crouching down by the door and bending over 
her burden to hush it, said humbly: “ Maybe my fears has 
put me wrong. If they have so, tell me, and the good Lord 
forgive me! I’m quick to take this fright, I know, and my 
head is summ’at light with wearying and watching.” 

“ There, there, there! ” returned Mrs. Boffin. “ Come, 
come! Say no more of it, Betty. It was a mistake, a mis- 
take. Any one of us might have made it in your place, and 
felt just as you do.” 

“ The Lord bless ye! ” said the old woman, stretching out 
her hand. 

“Now see, Betty,” pursued the sweet compassionate soul, 
holding the hand kindly, “ what 1 really did mean, and what 
I should have begun by saying out, if I had only been a little 
wiser and handier. We want to move Johnny to a place 
where there are none but children; a place set up on purpose 
for sick children; where the good doctors and nurses pass 


368 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


their lives with children; talk to none but children, touch 
none but children, comfort and cure none but children/’ 

“ Is there really such a place ? ” asked the old woman, with 
a gaze of wonder. 

“ Yes, Betty, on my wmrd, and you shall see it. If my 
home was a better place for the dear boy, I’d take him to 
it; but indeed indeed it’s not.” 

“You shall take him,” returned Betty, fervently kissing 
the comforting hand, “ where you will, my deary. I am not 
so hard but that I believe your face and voice, and I will, 
as long as I can see and hear.” 

This victory gained, Rokesmith made haste to profit by it, 
for he saw how wofully time had been lost. He despatched 
Sloppy to bring the carriage to the door; caused the child 
to be carefully wrapped up; bade old Betty get her bonnet 
on; collected the toys, enabling the little fellow to compre- 
hend that his treasures were^ to be transported with him ; 
and had all things prepared so easily that they were ready 
for the carriage as soon as it appeared, and in a minute 
afterwards were on their way. Sloppy they left behind, re- 
lieving his overcharged breast with a paroxysm of mangling. 

At the Children’s Hospital, the gallant steed, the Noah’s 
ark, the yellow bird, and the officer in the Guards, were made 
as welcome as their child-owner. But the doctor said aside 
to Rokesmith, “ This should have- been days ago. Too late! ” 
However, they were all carried up into a fresh airy room, 
and there Johnny came to himself, out of a sleep or a swoon 
or whatever it was, to find himself lying in a little quiet bed, 
with a little platform over his breast, on which were already 
arranged, to give him heart and urge him to cheer up, the 
Noah’s ark, the noble steed, and the yellow bird, wdth the 
officer in the Guards doing duty over the whole, quite as 
much to the satisfaction of his country as if he had been 
upon Parade. And at the bed’s head was a coloured picture 
beautiful to see, representing as it were another Johnny seated 
on the knee of some Angel surely who loved little children. 
And marvellous fact to lie and stare at: Johnny had become 
one of a little family, all in little quiet beds (except two 
playing dominoes in little arm-chairs at a little table on the 
hearth) : and on all the little beds were little platforms whereon 


IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL 369 


were to be seen dolls^ houses, woolly dogs with mechanical 
barks in them not very dissimilar from the artificial voice 
pervading the bowels of the yellow bird, tin armies, Moorish 
tumblers, wooden tea-things, and the riches of the earth. 

As Johnny murmured something in his placid admiration, 
the ministering woman at his bed’s head asked him what he 
said. It seemed that he wanted to know whether all these 
were brothers and sisters of his? So they told him yes. It 
seemed then, that he wanted to know whether God had 
brought them all together there ? So they told him yes again. 
They made out then, that he wanted to know whether 
they would all get out of pain ? So they answered yes to that 
question likewise, and made him understand that the reply 
included himself. 

Johnny’s powers of sustaining conversation were as yet so 
very imperfectly developed, even in a state of health, that in 
sickness they were little more than monosyllabic. But he 
had to be washed and tended, and remedies were applied, 
and though those offices were far, far more skilfully and 
lightly done than ever anything had been done for him in 
his little life, so rough and short, they would have hurt and 
tired him but for an amazing circumstance which laid hold 
of his attention. This was no less than the appearance on 
his own little platform in pairs, of All Creation on its way 
into his own particular ark; the elephant leading, and the 
fly, with a diffident sense of his size, politely bringing up 
the rear. A very little brother lying in the next bed with 
a broken leg, was so enchanted by this spectacle that his 
delight exalted its enthralling interest; and so came rest and 
sleep. 

“ I see you are not afraid to leave the dear child here, 
Betty,” whispered Mrs. Boffin. 

“ No, ma’am. Most willingly, most thankfully, with all 
my heart and soul.” 

So they kissed him, and left him there, and old Betty was 
to come back early in the morning, and nobody but Roke- 
smith knew for certain how that the doctor had said, “ This 
should have been days ago. Too late! ” 

But Rokesmith knowing it, and knowing that his bearing 
it in mind would be acceptable thereafter to that good woman 


370 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


who had been the only light in the childhood of desolate 
John Harmon dead and gone, resolved that late at night 
he would go back to the bedside of John Harmon’s namesake, 
and see how it fared with him. 

The family whom God had brought together were not 
all asleep, but were all quiet. From bed to bed a light wom- 
anly tread and a pleasant fresh face passed in the silence 
of the night. A little head would lift itself up into the softened 
light here and there, to be kissed as the face went by — 
for these little patients are very loving — and would then 
submit itself to be composed to rest again. The mite with 
the broken leg was restless, and moaned; but after a while 
turned his face towards Johnny’s bed, to fortify himself with 
a view of the ark, and fell asleep. Over most of the beds, 
the toys were yet grouped as the children had left them 
when they last laid themselves down, and, in their innocent 
grotesqueness and incongruity, they might have stood for 
the children’s dreams. 

The doctor came in too, to see how it fared with Johnny. 
And he and Rokesmith stood together, looking down with 
compassion on him. 

“ What is it, Johnny ? ” Rokesmith was the questioner, 
and put an arm round the poor baby as he made a struggle. 

“ Him! ” said the little fellow. “ Those! ” 

The doctor was quick to understand children, and, taking 
the horse, the ark, the yellow bird, and the man in the Guards, 
from Johnny’s bed, softly placed them on that of his next 
neighbour, the mite with the broken leg. 

With a weary and yet a pleased smile, and with an action 
as if he stretched his little figure out to rest, the child heaved 
his body on the sustaining arm, and seeking Rokesmith’s face 
with his lips, said: 

“ A kiss for the boofer lady.” 

Having now bequeathed all he had to dispose of, and 
arranged his affairs in this world, Johnny, thus speaking, 
left it. 


CHAPTER X 


A SUCCESSOR 

Some of the Reverend Frank Milvey’s brethren had found 
themselves exceedingly uncomfortable in their minds, because 
they were required to bury the dead too hopefully. But the 
Reverend Frank, inclining to the belief that they were 
required to do one or two other things (say out of nine-and- 
thirty) calculated to trouble their consciences rather more if 
they would think as much about them, held his peace. 

Indeed the Reverend Frank Milvey was a forbearing man, 
who noticed many sad warps and blights in the vineyard 
wherein he worked, and did not profess that they made him 
savagely wise. He only learned that the more he himself knew, 
in his little limited human way, the better he could distantly 
imagine what Omniscience might know. 

Wherefore, if the Reverend Frank had had to read the 
words that troubled some of his brethren, and profitably 
touched innumerable hearts, in a worse case than Johnny’s, 
he would have done so out of the pity and humility of his 
soul. Reading them over Johnny, he thought of his own 
six children, but not of his poverty, and read them with 
dimmed eyes. And very seriously did he and his bright 
little wife, who had been listening, look down into the small 
grave and walk home arm-in-arm. 

There was grief in the aristocratic house, and there was 
joy in the Bower. Mr. Wegg argued, if an orphan were 
wanted, was he not an orphan himself, and could a better 
be desired? And why go beating about Brentford bushes, 
seeking orphans forsooth who had established no claims upon 
you and made no sacrifices for you, when here was an orphan 
ready to your hand who had given up in your cause. Miss 
Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker? 


372 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Mr. Wegg chuckled, consequently, when he heard the 
tidings. Nay, it was afterwards affirmed by a witness who 
shall at present be nameless, that in the seclusion of the 
Bower he poked out his wooden leg, in the stage=ballet 
manner, and executed a taunting or triumphant pirouette 
on the genuine leg remaining to him. 

John Rokesmith^s manner towards Mrs. Boffin at this time 
was more the manner of a young man towards a mother, than 
that of a Secretary towards his employer’s wife. It had always 
been marked by a subdued affectionate deference that seemed 
to have sprung up on the very day of his engagement; what- 
ever was odd in her dress or her ways had seemed to have 
no oddity for him; he had sometimes borne a quietly amused 
face in her company, but still it had seemed as if the pleasure 
her genial temper and radiant nature yielded him, could have 
been quite as naturally expressed in a tear as in a smile. 
The completeness of his sympathy with her fancy for having 
a little John Harmon to protect and rear, he had showm in 
every act and word, and now that the kind fancy was disap- 
pointed, he treated it with a manly tenderness and respect for 
which she could hardly thank him enough. 

“ But I do thank you, Mr. Rokesmith,” said Mrs. Boffin, 
“ and I thank you most kindly. You love children.” 

“ I hope everybody does.” 

They ought,” said Mrs. Boffin; “ but we don’t all of us 
do what we ought; do us? ” 

John Rokesmith replied, “ Some among us supply the 
shortcomings of the rest. You have loved children well, Mr. 
Boffin has told me.” 

“ Not a bit better than he has, but that’s his way; he 
puts all the good upon me. You speak rather sadly, Mr. 
Rokesmith.” 

‘‘Do I?” 

“ It sounds to me so. Were you one of many children? ” 

He shook his head. 

“An only child?” 

“ No, there was another. Dead long ago.” 

“ Father or mother alive? ” 

“ Dead.” 

“And the rest of your relations ? ” 


A SUCCESSOR 


373 


** Dead — if I ever had any living. I never heard of any.” 

At this point of the dialogue Bella came in with a light 
step. She paused at the door a moment, hesitating whether 
to remain or retire; perplexed by finding that she was not 
observed. 

“ Now, don’t mind an old lady’s talk,” said Mrs. Boffin, 
“ but tell me. Are you quite sure, Mr. Rokesmith, that you 
have never had a disappointment in love ? ” 

“ Quite sure. Why do you ask me? ” 

“ Why, for this reason. Sometimes you have a kind of 
kept-down manner with you, which is not like your age. 
You can’t be thirty?” 

“ I am not yet thirty.” 

Deeming it high time to make her presence known, Bella 
coughed here to attract attention, begged pardon, and said 
she w^ould go, fearing that she interrupted some matter of 
business. 

“ No, don’t go,” rejoined Mrs. Boffin, “ because we are 
coming to business, instead of having begun it, and you 
belong to it as much now, my dear Bella, as I do. But I 
want my Noddy to consult with us. Would somebody be 
so good as find my Noddy for me ? ” 

Rokesmith departed on that errand, and presently returned 
accompanied by Mr. Boffin at his jog-trot. Bella felt a little 
vague trepidation as to the subject-matter of this same con- 
sultation, until Mrs. Boffin announced it. 

“ Now, you come and sit by me, my dear,” said that 
worthy soul, taking her comfortable place on a large ottoman 
in the centre of the room, and drawing her arm through 
Bella’s; “ and Noddy, you sit here, and Mr. Rokesmith you 
sit there. Now, you see, what I want to talk about is this. 
Mr. and Mrs. Milvey have sent me the kindest note possible 
(which Mr. Rokesmith just now read to me out loud, for I 
ain’t good at handwritings), offering to find me another little 
child to name and educate and bring up. Well. This has 
set me thinking.” 

(“ And she is a steam-ingein at it,” murmured Mr. Boffin, 
in an admiring parenthesis, “ when she once begins. It 
mayn’t be so easy to start her; but once started, she’s a 
ingein.”) 


374 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


— This has set me thinking, I say,” repeated Mrs. Boffin, 
cordially beaming under the influence of her husband’s 
compliment, “ and I have thought two things. First of all, 
that I have grown timid of reviving John Harmon’s name. 
It’s an unfortunate name, and I fancy I should reproach 
myself if I gave it to another dear child, and it proved again 
unlucky.” 

“ Now, whether,” said Mr. Boffin, gravely propounding a 
case for his Secretary’s opinion; “ whether one might call that 
a superstition ? ” 

“It is a matter of feeling with Mrs. Boffin,” said Roke- 
smith, gently. “ The name has always been unfortunate. 
It has now this new unfortunate association connected with 
it. The name has died out. Why revive it? Might I ask 
' Miss Wilfer what she thinks ? ” 

“ It has not been a fortunate name for me,” said Bella, 
colouring — “ or at least it was not, until it led to my being 
here — but that is not the point in my thoughts. As we had 
given the name to the poor child, and as the poor child took 
so lovingly to me, I think I should feel jealous of calling 
another child by it. I think I should feel as if the name had 
become endeared to me, and I had no right to use it so.” 

“And that’s your opinion?” remarked Mr. Boffin, ob- 
servant of the Secretary’s face and again addressing 
him. 

“ I say again, it is a matter of feeling,” returned the 
Secretary. “ I think Miss Wilfer’s feeling very womanly and 
pretty.” 

“ Now, give us your opinion. Noddy,” said Mrs. Boffin. 

“ My opinion, old lady,” returned the Golden Dustman, 
“ is your opinion.” 

“ Then,” said Mrs. Boffin, “ we agree not to revive John 
Harmon’s name, but to let it rest in the grave. It is, as Mr. 
Rokesmith says, a matter of feeling, but Lor how many 
matters are matters of feeling! Well; and so I come to the 
second thing I have thought of. You must know, Bella, my 
dear, and Mr. Rokesmith, that when I first named to my 
husband my thoughts of adopting a little orphan boy in 
remembrance of John Harmon, I further named to my 
husband that it was comforting to think that how the poor 


A SUCCESSOR 375 

boy would be benefited by John’s own money, and protected 
from John’s own forlornness.” 

“ Hear, hear! ” cried Mr. Boffin. “ So she did. Ancoar! ” 

” No, not Ancoar, Noddy, my dear,” returned Mrs. Boffin, 
“ because I am going to say something else. I meant that, 
I am sure, as much as I still mean it. But this little death 
has made me ask myself the question, seriously, whether I 
wasn’t too bent upon pleasing myself. Else why did I seek 
out so much for a pretty child, and a child quite to my 
liking? Wanting to do good, why not do it for its own sake, 
and put my taste and likings by ? ” 

“ Perhaps,” said Bella; and perhaps she said it wdth some 
little sensitiveness arising out of those old curious relations of 
hers towards the murdered man; “ perhaps, in reviving the 
name, you would not have liked to give it to a less interest- 
ing child than the original. He interested you very much.” 

“ Well, my dear,” returned Mrs. Boffin, giving her a 
squeeze, “ it’s kind of you to find that reason out, and I hope 
it may have been so, and indeed to a certain extent I believe 
it was so, but I am afraid not to the whole extent. However, 
that don’t come in question now, because we have done with 
the name.” 

“ Laid it up as a remembrance,” suggested Bella, musingly. 

“ Much better said, my dear; laid it up as a remembrance. 
Well then; I have been thinking if I take any orphan to 
provide for, let it not be a pet and a plaything for me, but 
a creature to be helped for its own sake.” 

“ Not pretty then ? ” said Bella. 

“ No,” returned Mrs. Boffin, stoutly. 

“ Nor prepossessing then ? ” said Bella. 

“ No,” returned Mrs. Boffin. “ Not necessarily so. That’s 
as it may happen. A well-disposed boy comes in my way 
who may be even a little wanting in such advantages for 
getting on in life, but is honest and industrious, and requires 
a helping hand, and deserves it. If I am very much in earnest 
and quite determined to be unselfish, let me take care of 
him” 

Here the footman whose feelings had been hurt on the 
former occasion, appeared, and crossing to Rokesmith apolo- 
getically announced the objectionable Sloppy. 


376 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


The four members of Council looked at one another, 
and paused. “Shall he be brought here, ma’am?” asked 
Rokesmith. 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Boffin. Whereupon the footman dis- 
appeared, reappeared presenting Sloppy, and retired much 
disgusted. 

The consideration of Mrs. Boffin had clothed Mr. Sloppy 
in a suit of black, on which the tailor had received personal 
directions from Rokesmith to expend the utmost cunning of 
his art, with a view to the concealment of the cohering and 
sustaining buttons. But so much more powerful were the 
frailties of Sloppy’s form than the strongest resources of 
tailoring science, that he now stood before the Council, a 
perfect Argus in the way of buttons: shining and winking 
and gleaming and twinkling out of a hundred of those eyes 
of bright metal, at the dazzled spectators. The artistic taste 
of some unknown hatter had furnished him with a hatband of 
wholesale capacity which was fluted behind, from the crown of 
his hat to the brim, and terminated in a black bunch, from 
which the imagination shrunk discomfited and the reason 
revolted. Some special powers with which his legs were 
endowed had already hitched up his glossy trousers at the 
ankles, and bagged them at the knees: while similar gifts in 
his arms had raised his coat-sleeves from his wrists and 
accumulated them at his elbows. Thus set forth, with the 
additional embellishments of a very little tail to his coat, and 
a yawning gulf at his waistband. Sloppy stood confessed. 

“And how is Betty, my good fellow?” Mrs. Boffin asked 
him. 

“ Thankee, mum,” said Sloppy, “ she do pretty nicely, and 
sending her dooty and many thanks for the tea and all 
favours and wishing to know the family’s healths.” 

“ Have you just come. Sloppy? ” 

“ Yes, mum.” 

“ Then you have not had your dinner yet? ” 

“ No, mum. But I mean to it. For I ain’t forgotten your 
handsome orders that I was never to go away without having 
had a good ’un off of meat and beer and pudding — no: there 
was four of ’em, for I reckoned ’em up when I had ’em; 
meat one, beer two, vegetables three, and which was four ? — 


A SUCCESSOR 377 

Why, pudding, he was four! Here Sloppy threw his head 
back, opened his mouth wide, and laughed rapturously. 

“How are the two poor little Minders?” asked Mrs. 
Boffin. 

“ Striking right out, mum, and coming round beautiful.” 

Mrs. Boffin looked on the other three members of Council, 
and then said, beckoning with her finger: 

“ Sloppy.” 

“ Yes, mum.” 

“ Come forward. Sloppy. Should you like to dine here 
every day ? ” 

“Off of all four on ’em, mum? Oh, mum!” Sloppy’s 
feelings obliged him to squeeze his hat, and contract one leg 
at the knee. 

“Yes. And should you like to be always taken care of 
here, if you were industrious and deserving ? ” 

“Oh, mum! — But there’s Mrs. Higden,” said Sloppy, 
checking himself in his raptures, drawing back, and shaking 
his head with very serious meaning. “ There’s Mrs. Higden. 
Mrs. Higden goes before all. None can ever be better friends 
to me than Mrs. Higden’s been. And she must be turned 
for, must Mrs. Higden. Where would Mrs. Higden be if 
she warn’t turned for?” At the mere thought of Mrs. 
Higden in this inconceivable affliction, Mr. Sloppy’s coun- 
tenance became pale, and manifested the most distressful 
emotions. 

“ You are as right as right can be. Sloppy,” said Mrs. 
Boffin, “ and far be it from me to tell you otherwise. It 
shall be seen to. If Betty Higden can be turned for all the 
same, you shall come here and be taken care of for life, and 
be made able to keep her in other ways than the turning.” 

“ Even as to that, mum,” answered the ecstatic Sloppy, 
“ the turning might be done in the night, don’t you see ? I 
could be here in the day, and turn in the night. I don’t 
want no sleep, I don’t. Or even if I any ways should want 
a wink or two,” added Sloppy, after a moment’s apologetic 
reflection, “ I could take ’em turning I’ve took ’em turning 
many a time, and enjoyed ’em wonderful! ” 

On the grateful impulse of the moment, Mr. Sloppy kissed 
Mrs. Boffin’s hand, and then detaching himself from that 


378 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


good creature that he might have room enough for his feel- 
ings, threw back his head, opened his mouth wide, and uttered 
a dismal howl. It was creditable to his tenderness of heart, 
but suggested that he might on occasion give some offence 
to the neighbours: the rather as the footman looked in, 
and begged pardon, finding he was not wanted, but excused 
himself on the ground “ that he thought it was Cats.” 


CHAPTER XI 


SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART 

Little Miss Peecher, from her little official dwelling-house, 
with its little windows like the eyes in needles, and its little 
doors like the covers of school-books, was very observant 
indeed of the object of her quiet affections. Love, though 
said to be afflicted with blindness, is a vigilant watchman, 
and Miss Peecher kept him on double duty over Mr. Bradley 
Headstone. It was not that she was naturally given to 
playing the spy — it was not that she was at all secret, plot- 
ting, or mean — it was simply that she loved the unresponsive 
Bradley with all the primitive and homely stock of love that 
had never been examined or certificated out of her. If her 
faithful slate had had the latent qualities of sympathetic 
paper, and its pencil those of invisible ink, many a little 
treatise calculated to astonish the pupils would have come 
bursting through the dry sums in school-time under the 
warming influence of Miss Peecher’s bosom. For oftentimes 
when school was not, and her calm leisure and calm little 
house were her own. Miss Peecher would commit to the 
confidential slate an imaginary description of how, upon a 
balmy evening at dusk, two figures might have been observed 
in the market-garden ground round the corner, of whom one, 
being a manly form, bent over the other, being a womanly 
form of short stature and some compactness, and breathed 
in a low voice the words, Emma Peecher, wilt thou be my 
own ? ” after which the womanly form’s head reposed upon 
the manly form’s shoulder, and the nightingales tuned up. 
Though all unseen, and unsuspected by the pupils, Bradley 
Headstone even pervaded the school exercises. Was Geog- 
raphy in question ? He would come triumphantly flying out of 
Vesuvius and .^Etna ahead of the lava, and would boil un- 


380 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


harmed in the hot springs of Iceland, and would float ma- 
jestically down the Ganges and the Nile. Did History 
chronicle a king of men? Behold him in pepper-and-salt 
pantaloons, with his watch-guard round his neck. Were 
copies to be written? In' capital B’s and H’s most of the 
girls under Miss Beecher’s tuition were half a year ahead of 
every other letter in the alphabet. And Mental Arithmetic, 
administered by Miss Beecher, often devoted itself to pro- 
viding Bradley Headstone with a wardrobe of fabulous 
extent; fourscore and four neckties at two and ninepence- 
halfpenny, two gross of silver watches at four pounds fifteen 
and sixpence, seventy-four black hats at eighteen shillings; 
and many similar superfluities. 

The vigilant watchman, using his daily opportunities of 
turning his eyes in Bradley’s direction, soon apprised Miss 
Beecher that Bradley was more preoccupied than had been 
his wont, and more given to strolling about with a downcast 
and reserved face, turning something difficult in his mind 
that was not in the scholastic syllabus. Butting this and 
that together — combining under the head “this,” present 
appearances and the intimacy with Charley Hexam, and 
ranging under the head “ that ” the visit to his sister, the 
watchman reported to Miss Beecher his strong suspicions 
that the sister was at the bottom of it. 

“ I wonder,” said Miss Beecher, as she sat making up her 
weekly report on a half-holiday afternoon, “ what they call 
Hexam’s sister ? ” 

Mary Anne, at her needlework, attendant and attentive, 
held her arm up. 

“ Well, Mary Anne? ” 

“ She is named Lizzie, ma’am.” 

“She can hardly be named Lizzie, I think, Mary Anne,” 
returned Miss Beecher, in a tunefully instructive voice. “ Is 
Lizzie a Christian name, Mary Anne ? ” 

Mary Anne laid down her work, rose, hooked herself behind 
as being under catechization, and replied : “ No, it is a 
corruption. Miss Beecher.” 

“ Who gave her that name? ” Miss Beecher was going on, 
from the mere force of habit, when she checked herself, on 
Mary Anne’s evincing theological impatience to strike in with 


SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART 381 

her godfathers and her godmothers, and said: I mean of 
what name is it a corruption ? ” 

“ Elizabeth or Eliza, Miss Peecher.” 

“ Right, Mary Anne. Whether there were any Lizzies in 
the early Christian Church must be considered very doubtful, 
very doubtful.” Miss Peecher was exceedingly sage here. 
“ Speaking correctly, we say, then, that Hexarn’s sister is 
called Lizzie: not that she is named so. Do we not, Mary 
Anne?” 

“ We do, Miss Peecher.” 

“And where,” pursued Miss Peecher, complacent in her 
little transparent fiction of conducting the examination in a 
semi-official manner for Mary Anne’s benefit, not her own, 
“ where does this young woman, who is called but not named 
Lizzie, live ? Think, now, before answering.” 

“ In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank, ma’am.” 

“ In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,” repeated 
Miss Peecher, as if possessed beforehand of the book in which 
it was written. “ Exactly so. And what occupation does 
this young woman pursue, Mary Anne? Take time.” 

“ She has a place of trust at an outfitter’s in the City, 
ma’am.” 

“ Oh! ” said Miss Peecher, pondering on it: but smoothly 
added, in a confirmatory tone, “ At an outfitter’s in the City. 
Ye-es.” 

“ And Charley ” Mary Anne was proceeding, when 

Miss Peecher stared. 

“ I mean Hexam, Miss Peecher.” 

“ I should think you did, Mary Anne. I am glad to hear 
you do. And Hexam ? ” 

“ Says,” Mary Anne went on, “ that he is not pleased with 
his sister, and that his sister won’t be guided by his advice, 
and persists in being guided by somebody else’s; and 
that ” 

“Mr. Headstone coming across the garden!” exclaimed 
Miss Peecher, with a flushed glance at the looking-glass. 
“ You have answered very well, Mary Anne. You are 
forming an excellent habit of arranging your thoughts clearly. 
That will do.” 

The discreet Mary A nne resumed her seat and her silence. 


382 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


and stitched, and stitched, and was stitching when the school- 
master’s shadow came in before him, announcing that he 
might be instantly expected. 

“ Good evening. Miss Peecher,” he said, pursuing the 
shadow, and taking its place. 

“ Good evening, Mr. Headstone. Mary Anne, a chair.” 

“ Thank you,” said Bradley, seating himself in his con- 
strained manner. “ This is but a flying visit. I have looked 
in, on my way, to ask a kindness of you as a neigh- 
bour.” 

“ Did you say on your way, Mr. Headstone? ” asked Miss 
Peecher. 

“ On my way to — where I am going.” 

“ Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,” repeated 
Miss Peecher, in her own thoughts. 

Charley Hexam has gone to get a book or two he wants, 
and will probably be back before me. As we leave my house 
empty, I took the liberty of telling him I would leave the 
key here. Would you kindly allow me to do so ? ” 

Certainly, Mr. Headstone. Going for an evening walk, 
sir?” 

Partly for a walk, and partly for — on business.” 

“ Business in Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,” 
repeated Miss Peecher to herself. 

“ Having said which,” pursued Bradley, laying his door-key 
on the table, “ I must be already going. There is nothing I 
can do for you, Miss Peecher ? ” 

“ Thank you, Mr. Headstone. In which direction ? ” 

“ In the direction of Westminster.” 

‘‘ Mill Bank,” Miss Peecher repeated in her own thoughts 
once again. “ No, thank you, Mr. Headstone; I’ll not 
trouble you.” 

“ You couldn’t trouble me,” said the schoolmaster. 

“Ah!” returned Miss Peecher, though not aloud; “but 
you can trouble me! ” and for all her quiet manner and her 
quiet smile, she was full of trouble as he went his way. 

She was right touching his destination. He held as straight 
a course for the house of the dolls’ dressmaker as the wisdom 
of his ancestors, exemplified in the construction of the inter- 
vening streets, would let him, and walked with a bent head 


SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART 


383 


hammering at one fixed idea. It had been an immovable 
idea since he first set eyes upon her. It seemed to him as if 
all that he could suppress in himself he had suppressed, as if 
all that he could restrain in himself he had restrained, and 
the time had come — in a rush, in a moment when the 
power of self-command had departed from him. Love at 
first sight is a trite expression quite sufficiently discussed; 
enough that in certain smouldering natures like this man’s, 
that passion leaps into a blaze, and makes such head as fire 
does in a rage of wind, when other passions, but for its mas- 
tery, could be held in chains. As a multitude of weak, imi- 
tative natures are always lying by, ready to go mad upon the 
next wrong idea that may be broached — in these times, gen- 
erally some form of tribute to Somebody for something that 
never was done, or, if ever done, that was done by Somebody 
Else — so these less ordinary natures may lie by for years, ready 
on the touch of an instant to burst into flame. 

The schoolmaster went his way, brooding and brooding, 
and a sense of being vanquished in a struggle might have 
been pieced out of his worried face. Truly, in his breast 
there lingered a resentful shame to find himself defeated by 
this passion for Charley Hexam’s sister, though in the very 
self-same moments he was concentrating himself upon the 
object of bringing the passion to a successful issue. 

He appeared before the dolls’ dressmaker, sitting alone at 
her work. “Oho!” thought that sharp young personage, 
“ it’s you, is it? I know your tricks and your manners, my 
friend ! ” 

“ Hexam’s sister,” said Bradley Headstone, “ is not come 
home yet ? ” 

“ You are quite a conjurer,” returned Miss Wren. 

“ I will wait, if you please, for I want to speak to her.” 

“ Do you ? ” returned Miss Wren. “ Sit down. I hope it’s 
mutual.” 

Bradley glanced distrustfully at the shrewd face again 
bending over the work, and said, trying to conquer doubt 
and hesitation: 

“ I hope you don’t imply that my visit will be unacceptable 
to Hexam’s sister ? ” 

“ There. Don’t call her that. I can’t bear you to call 


384 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


her that,” returned Miss Wren, snapping her fingers in a 
volley of impatient snaps, “ for I don’t like Hexam.” 

“Indeed?” 

“ No.” Miss Wren wrinkled her nose, to express dislike. 
“ Selfish. Thinks only of himself. The way with all of you.” 

“ The way w ith all of us ? Then you don’t like me f ” 

“ So-so,” replied Miss Wren, with a shrug and a laugh. 
“ Don’t know much about you.” 

“ But I was not aware it w^as the way with all of us,” said 
Bradley, returning to the accusation, a little injured. “ Won’t 
you say, some of us ? ” 

“ Meaning,” returned the little creature, “ every one of you, 
but you. Hah! Now look this lady in the face. This is 
Mrs. Truth. The Honourable. Full-dressed.” 

Bradley glanced at the doll she held up for his observation, 
— which had been lying on its face on her bench, while with 
a needle and thread she fastened the dress on at the back — 
and looked from it to her. 

“ I stand the Honourable Mrs. T. on my bench in this 
corner against the wall, where her blue eyes can shine upon 
you,” pursued Miss Wren, doing so, and making two little 
dabs at him in the air with her needle, as if she pricked him 
with it in his own eyes; “ and I defy you to tell me, with Mrs. 
T. for a witness, what you have come here for.” 

“ To see Hexam’s sister.” 

“You don’t say so!” retorted Miss Wren, hitching her 
chin. “ But on whose account ? ” 

“ Her own.” 

“Oh, Mrs. T.!” exclaimed Miss Wren. “You hear 
him?” 

“ To reason with her,” pursued Bradley, half humouring 
what was present, and half angry with what was not present; 
“ for her own sake.” 

“ Oh, Mrs. T. ! ” exclaimed the dressmaker. 

“ For her own sake,” repeated Bradley, warming, “ and 
for her brother’s, and as a perfectly disinterested person.” 

“ Really, Mrs. T.,” remarked the dressmaker, “ since it 
comes to this, we must positively turn you with your face 
to the wall.” She had hardly done so, when Lizzie Hexam 
arrived, and showed some surprise on seeing Bradley Head* 


SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART 


385 


stone there, and Jenny shaking her little fist at him close 
before her eyes, and the Honourable Mrs. T. with her face 
to the wall. 

“ Here’s a perfectly disinterested person, Lizzie dear,” said 
the knowing Miss Wren, “ come to talk with you, for your 
own sake and your brother’s. Think of that. I am sure 
there ought to be no third party present at anything so very 
kind and so very serious; and so, if you’ll remove the third 
party up-stairs, my dear, the third party will retire.” 

Lizzie took the hand which the dolls’ dressmaker held out 
to her for the purpose of being supported away, but only 
looked at her with an inquiring smile, and made no other 
movement. 

“ The third party hobbles awfully, you know, when she’s 
left to herself,” said Miss W^ren, her back being so bad, 
and her legs so queer; so she can’t retire gracefully unless 
you help her, Lizzie.” 

“ She can do no better than stay where she is,” returned 
Lizzie, releasing the hand, and laying her own lightly on 
Miss Jenny’s curls. And then to Bradley: “ From Charley, 
sir?” 

In an irresolute way, and stealing a clumsy look at her, 
Bradley rose to place a chair for her, and then returned to 
his own. 

“ Strictly speaking,” said he, “ I come from Charley, 
because I left him only a little while ago; but I am not com- 
missioned by Charley. I come of my own spontaneous 
act.” 

With her elbows on her bench, and her chin upon her 
hands. Miss Jenny Wren sat looking at him with a watchful 
sidelong look. Lizzie, in her different way, sat looking at 
him too. 

“ The fact is,” began Bradley, with a mouth so dry that 
he had some difficulty in articulating his words: the con- 
sciousness of which rendered his manner still more ungainly 
and undecided ; the truth is, that Charley, having no secrets 
from me (to the best of my belief), has confided the whole of 
this matter to me.” 

He came to a stop, and Lizzie asked: “What matter. 


386 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I thought,” returned the schoolmaster, stealing another 
look at her, and seeming to try in vain to sustain it; for 
the look dropped as it lighted on her eyes, “ that it might be 
so superfluous as to be almost impertinent to enter upon 
a definition of it. My allusion was to this matter of your 
having put aside your brother’s plans for you, and given the 
preference to those of Mr. — I believe the name is Mr. Eugene 
Wrayburn.” 

He made this point of not being certain of the name, with 
another uneasy look at her, which dropped like the last. 

Nothing being said on the other side, he had to begin 
again, and began with new embarrassment. 

“ Your brother’s plans were communicated to me when he 
first had them in his thoughts. In point of fact he spoke to 
me about them when I was last here — when we were walking 
back together, and when I — when the impresfion was fresh 
upon me of having seen his sister.” 

There might have been no meaning in it, but the little 
dressmaker here removed one of her supporting hands from 
her chin, and musingly turned the Honourable Mrs. T. with 
her face to the company. That done, she fell into her former 
attitude. 

“ I approved of his idea,” said Bradley, with his uneasy 
look wandering to the doll, and unconsciously resting there 
longer than it had rested on Lizzie, “ both because your 
brother ought naturally to be the originator of any such 
scheme, and because I hoped to be able to promote it. I 
should have had inexpressible pleasure, I should have taken 
inexpressible interest, in promoting it. Therefore I must 
acknowledge that when your brother was disappointed, I too 
was disappointed. I wish to avoid reservation or conceal- 
ment, and I fully acknowledge that.” 

He appeared to have encouraged himself by having got so 
far. At all events he went on with much greater firmness 
and force of emphasis: though with a curious disposition to 
set his teeth, and with a curious tight-screwing movement of 
his right hand in the clenching palm of his left, like the 
action of one who was being physically hurt, and was un- 
willing to cry out. 

“ I am a man of strong feelings, and I have strongly felt 


SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART 


387 


this disappointment. I do strongly feel it. I don’t show 
what I feel; some of us are obliged habitually to keep it 
down. To keep it down. But to return to your brother. 
He has taken the matter so much to heart that he has re- 
monstrated (in my presence he remonstrated) with Mr. 
Eugene Wrayburn, if that be the name. He did so, quite 
ineffectually. As any one not blinded to the real character 
of Mr. — Mr. Eugene Wrayburn — would readily suppose.” 

He looked at Lizzie again, and held the look. And his 
face turned from burning red to white, and from white back 
to burning red, and so for the time to lasting deadly white. 

“ Finally, I resolved to come here alone, and appeal to 
you. I resolved to come here alone, and entreat you to re- 
tract the course you have chosen, and instead of confiding 
in a mere stranger — a person of most insolent behaviour to 
your brother and others — to prefer your brother and your 
brother’s friend.” 

Lizzie Hexam had changed colour when those changes 
came over him, and her face now expressed some anger, 
more dislike, and even a touch of fear. But she answered 
him very steadily. 

. “ I cannot doubt, Mr. Headstone, that your visit is well 
meant. You have been so good a friend to Charley that I 
have no right to doubt it. I have nothing to tell Charley, 
but that I accepted the help to which he so much objects 
before he made any plans for me; or certainly before I knew 
of any. It was considerately and delicately offered, and 
there were reasons that had weight with me which should 
be as dear to Charley as to me. I have no more to say to 
Charley on this subject.” 

His lips trembled and stood apart, as he followed this 
repudiation of himself, and limitation of her words to her 
brother. 

“ I should have told Charley, if he had come to me,” she 
resumed, as though it were an after-thought, “ that Jenny 
and I find our teacher very able and very patient, and that 
she takes great pains with us. So much so, that we have 
said to her we hope in a very little while to be able to go 
on by ourselves. Charley knows about teachers, and I 
should also have told him, for his satisfaction, that ours 


388 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


comes from an institution where teachers are regularly 
brought up.” 

“ I should like to ask you,” said Bradley Headstone, 
grinding his words slowly out, as though they came from 
a rusty mill; “ I should like to ask you, if I may without 

offence, whether you would have objected no; rather, 

I should like to say, if I may without offence, that I wish 
I had had the opportunity of coming here with your brother 
and devoting my poor abilities and experience to your ser- 
vice.” 

“ Thank you, Mr. Headstone.” 

“ But I fear,” he pursued, after a pause, furtively wrench- 
ing at the seat of his chair with one hand, as if he would 
have wrenched the chair to pieces, and gloomily observing 
her eyes were cast down, “ that my humble services would 
not have found much favour with you ? ” 

She made no reply, and the poor stricken wretch sat con- 
tending with himself in a heat of passion and torment. After 
a while he took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead 
and hands. 

“ There is only one thing more I had to say, but it is the 
most important. There is a reason against this matter, there 
is a personal relation concerned in this matter, not yet ex- 
plained to you. It might — I don’t say it would — it might — 
induce you to think differently. To proceed under the present 
circumstances is out of the question. Will you please 
come to the understanding that there shall be another inter- 
view on the subject ? ” 

“With Charley, Mr. Headstone?” 

“With — well,” he answered, breaking off, “yes! Say 
with him too. Will you please come to the understanding 
that there must be another interview under more favourable 
circumstances, before the whole case can be submitted ? ” 

“ I don’t,” said Lizzie, shaking her head, “ understand 
your meaning, Mr. Headstone.” 

“ Limit my meaning for the present,” he interrupted, “ to 
the whole case being submitted to you in another interview.” 

“What case, Mr. Headstone? What is wanting to it?” 

“You — you shall be informed in the other interview.” 
Then he said, as if in a burst of irrepressible despair, “ I 


SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART 389 

— I leave it all incomplete ! There is a spell upon me, I 
think! ” And then added, almost as if he asked for pity, 
“ Good night! ” 

He held out his hand. As she, with manifest hesitation, 
not to say reluctance, touched it, a strange tremble passed 
over him, and his face, so deadly white, was moved as by a 
stroke of pain. Then he was gone. 

The dolls’ dressmaker sat with her attitude unchanged, 
eyeing the door by which he had departed, until Lizzie 
pushed her bench aside and sat down near her. Then, 
eyeing Lizzie as she had previously eyed Bradley and the 
door. Miss Wren chopped that very sudden and keen chop 
in which her jaws sometimes indulged, leaned back in her 
chair with folded arms, and thus expressed herself : 

Humph! If he — I mean, of course, my dear, the party 
who is coming to court me when the time comes — should be 
that sort of man, he may spare himself the trouble. He 
wouldn’t do to be trotted about and made useful. He’d 
take fire and blow up while he was about it.” 

“And so you would be rid of him,” said Lizzie, humour- 
ing her. 

“ Not so easily,” returned Miss Wren. “ He wouldn’t 
blow up alone. He’d carry me up with him. I know his 
tricks and his manners.” 

“Would he want to hurt you, do you mean?” asked 
Lizzie. 

“ Mightn’t exactly want to do it, my dear,” returned Miss 
Wren; “but a lot of gunpowder among lighted lucifer- 
matches in the next room might almost as well be here.” 

“ He is a very strange man,” said Lizzie, thoughtfully. 

“ I wish he was so very strang,e a man as to be a total 
stranger,” answered the sharp little thing. 

It being Lizzie’s regular occupation when they were alone 
of an evening to brush out and smooth the long fair hair of 
the dolls’ dressmaker, she unfastened a ribbon that kept it 
back while the little creature was at her w^ork, and it fell in 
a beautiful shower over the poor shoulders that were much 
in need of such adorning rain. “ Not now, Lizzie, dear,” 
said Jenny; “ let us have a talk by the fire.” With those 
words, she in her turn loosened her friend’s dark hair, and 


390 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


it dropped of its own weight over her bosom in two rich 
masses. Pretending to compare the colours and admire the 
contrast, Jenny so managed a mere touch or two of her 
nimble hands, as that she herself laying a cheek on one of 
the dark folds, seemed blinded by her own clustering curls 
to all but the fire, while the fine handsome face and brow of 
Lizzie were revealed without obstruction in the sober light. 

“ Let us have a talk,” said Jenny, “ about Mr. Eugene 
Wrayburn.” 

Something sparkled down among the fair hair resting on 
the dark hair; and if it were not a star — which it cquldn^t 
be — it was an eye; and if it were an eye, it was Jenny Wren’s 
eye, bright and watchful as the bird’s whose name she had 
taken. 

“ Why about Mr. Wrayburn ? ” Lizzie asked. 

“For no better reason than because I’m in the humour. 
I wonder whether he’s rich I ” 

“ No, not rich.” 

“Poor?” 

“ I think so, for a gentleman.” 

“Ah! To be sure! Yes, he’s a gentleman. Not of our 
sort, is he ? ” 

A shake of the head, a thoughtful shake of the head, and 
the answer, softly spoken, “ Oh no, oh no! ” 

The dolls’ dressmaker had an arm round her friend’s 
waist. Adjusting the arm, she slyly took the opportunity of 
blowing at her own hair where it fell over her face; then the 
eye down there under lighter shadows sparkled more brightly 
and appeared more watchful. 

“ When He turns up, he shan’t be a gentleman; PH very 
soon send him packing, if he is. However, he’s not Mr. 
Wrayburn; I haven’t captivated him. I wonder whether 
anybody has, Lizzie! ” 

“It is very likely.” 

“ Is it very likely? I wonder who! ” 

“Is it not very likely that some lady has been taken by 
him, and that he may love her dearly ? ” 

“ Perhaps. I don’t know. What would you think of him, 
Lizzie, if you were a lady ? ” 

“la lady! ” she repeated, laughing. “ Such a fancy! ” 


SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART 


391 


** Yes. But say: just as a fancy, and for instance.” 

I a lady! I, a poor girl who used to row poor father 
on the river. I, who had rowed poor father out and home 
on the very night when I saw him for the first time. I, who 
was made so timid by his looking at me, that I got up and 
went out 1 

(“ He did look at you, even that night, though you were 
not a lady! ” thought Miss Wren.) 

a lady! ” Lizzie went on in a low voice, with her eyes 
upon the fire. “ I, with poor father’s grave not even cleared 
of undeserved stain and shame, and he trying to clear it for 
me! I a lady!” 

“ Only as a fancy, and for instance,” urged Miss Wren. 

“Too much, Jenny dear, too much! My fancy is not 
able to get that far.” As the low fire gleamed upon her, it 
showed her smiling, mournfully and abstractedly. 

“But I am in the humour, and I must be humoured, 
Lizzie, because after all I am a poor little thing, and have 
had a hard day with my bad child ^ Look in the fire, as I 
like to hear you tell how you used to do when you lived in 
that dreary old house that had once been a windmill. Look 
in the — what was its name when you told fortunes with your 
brother that I don't like ? ” 

“ The hollow down by the flare ? ” 

“Ah! That’s the name! You can find a lady there, 
/ know.” 

“ More easily than I can make one of such material as 
myself, Jenny.” 

The sparkling eye looked steadfastly up, as the musing 
face looked thoughtfully down. “Well?” said the dolls’ 
dressmaker, “ we have found our lady? ” 

Lizzie nodded, and asked, “ Shall she be rich? ” 

“ She had better be, as he’s poor.” 

“ She is very rich. Shall she be handsome ? ” 

Even you can be that, Lizzie, so she ought to be.” 

“ She is very handsome.” 

“ What does she say about him? ” asked Miss Jenny, in a 
low voice: watchful, through an intervening silence, of the 
face looking down at the fire. 

“ She is glad, glad to be rich, that he may have the money. 


392 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


She is glad, glad to be beautiful, that he may be proud of 
her. <Her poor heart 

“ Eh? Her poor heart? ” said Miss Wren. 

Her heart — is given him, with all its love and truth. 
She would joyfully die with him, or, better than that, die 
for him. She knows he has failings, but she thinks they 
have grown up through his being like one cast away, for 
the want of something to trust in, and care for, and think 
well of. And she says, that lady rich and beautiful that 
I can never come near, ‘ Only put me in that empty place, 
only try how little I mind myself, only prove what a world 
of things I will do and bear for you, and I hope that you 
might even come to- be much better than you are, through 
me who am so much worse, and hardly worth the thinking 
of beside you.’ ” 

As the face looking at the fire had become exalted and 
forgetful in the rapture of these words, the little creature, 
openly clearing away her fair hair with her disengaged 
hand, had gazed at it with earnest attention and some- 
thing like alarm. Now that the speaker ceased, the little 
creature laid down her head again, and moaned, “ O me, 
O me, O me ! ” 

“ In pain, dear Jenny? ” asked Lizzie, as if awakened. 

“Yes, but not the old pain. Lay me down, lay me down. 
Don’t go out of my sight to-night. Lock the door and keep 
close to me.” Then turning away her face, she said in a 
whisper to herself, “My Lizzie, my poor Lizzie! O my 
blessed children, come back in the long bright slanting rows, 
and come for her, not me. She wants help more than I, my 
blessed children 1 ” 

She had stretched her hands up with that higher and 
better look, and now she turned again, and folded them 
round Lizzie’s neck, and rocked herself on Lizzie’s breast. 


CHAPTER XII 


MORE BIRDS OF PREY 

Rogue Riderhood dwelt deep and dark in Limehouse 
Hole, among the riggers, and the mast, oar, and block makers, 
and the boat-builders, and the sail-lofts, as in a kind of ship’s 
hold stored full of waterside characters, some no better than 
himself, some very much better, and none much worse. The 
Hole, albeit in a general way not over nice in its choice of 
company, was rather shy in reference to the honour of culti- 
vating the Rogue’s acquaintance; more frequently giving 
him the cold shoulder than the warm hand, and seldom or 
never drinking with him unless at his own expense. A part 
of the Hole, indeed, contained .so much public spirit and 
private virtue that not even this strong leverage could move 
it to good fellowship with a tainted accuser. But there may 
have been the drawback on this magnanimous morality, that 
its exponents held a true witness before Justice to be the 
next unneighbourly and accursed character to a false one. 

Had it not been for the daughter whom he often mentioned, 
Mr. Riderhood might have found the Hole a mere grave as 
to any means it would yield him of getting a living. But 
Miss Pleasant Riderhood had some little position and con- 
nection in Limehouse Hole. Upon the smallest of small 
scales she was an unlicensed pawnbroker, keeping what was 
popularly called a Leaving Shop, by lending insignificant 
sums on insignificant articles of property deposited with 
her as security. In her four-and -twentieth year of life, 
Pleasant was already in her fifth year of this way of trade. 
Her deceased mother had established the business, and on 
that parent’s demise she had appropriated a secret capital of 
fifteen shillings to establishing herself in it; the existence 
of such capital in a pillow being the last intelligible con- 


394 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


fidential communication made to her by the departed, before 
succumbing to dropsical conditions of inuff and gin, incom- 
patible equally with coherence and existence. 

Why christened Pleasant, the late Mrs. Riderhood might 
possibly have been able at some time to explain, and possibly 
not. Her daughter had no information on that point. Pleas- 
ant she found herself, and she couldn’t help/ it. She had 
not been consulted on the question, any more than on the 
question of her coming into these terrestrial parts to want a 
name. Similarly, she found herself possessed of what is 
colloquially termed a swivel eye (derived from her father), 
which she might perhaps have declined if her sentiments on 
the subject had been taken. She was not otherwise positively 
ill-looking, though anxious, meagre, of a muddy complexion, 
and looking as old again as she really was. 

As some dogs have it in the blood, or are trained, to worry 
certain creatures to a certain point, so — not to make the 
comparison disrespectfully — Pleasant Riderhood had it in 
the blood, or had been trained, to regard seamen, within 
certain limits, as her prey. Show her a man in a blue jacket, 
and, figuratively speaking,, she pinned him instantly. Yet, 
all things considered, she was not of an evil mind or an un- 
kindly disposition. For observe how many things were 
to be considered according to her own unfortunate experience. 
Show Pleasant Riderhood a Wedding in the street, and she 
only saw two people taking out a regular license to quarrel 
and fight. Show her a Christening, and she saw a little 
heathen personage having a quite superfluous name bestowed 
upon it, inasmuch as it would be commonly addressed by 
some abusive epithet; which little personage was not in the 
least wanted by anybody, and would be shoved and banged 
out of everybody’s way, until it should grow big enough to 
shove and bang. Show her a Funeral, and she saw an un- 
remunerative ceremony in the nature of a black masque- 
rade, conferring a temporary gentility on the performers, 
at an immense expense, and representing the only formal 
party ever given by the deceased. Show her a live father, 
and she saw but a duplicate of her own father, who from her 
infancy had been taken with fits and starts of discharging 
his duty to her, which duty was always incorporated in the 


MORE BIRDS OF PREY 


395 


form of a fist or a leathern strap, and being discharged hurt 
her. All things considered, therefore. Pleasant Riderhood 
was not so very, very bad. There was even a touch of 
romance in her — of such romance as could creep into Lime- 
house Hole — and maybe sometimes of a summer evening, 
when she stood with folded arms at her shop-door, looking 
from the reeking street to the sky where the sun was setting, 
she may have had some vaporous visions of far-off islands 
in the southern seas or elsewhere (not being geographically 
particular) where it would be good to roam with a congenial 
partner among groves of bread-fruit, waiting for ships to 
be wafted from the hollow ports of civilisation. For sailors 
to be got the better of were essential to Miss Pleasant’s 
Eden. 

Not on a summer evening did she come to her little shop- 
door, when a certain man standing over against the house on 
the opposite side of the street took notice of her. That was 
on a cold shrewd windy evening, after dark. Pleasant Rider- 
hood shared with most of the lady inhabitants of the Hole, 
the peculiarity that her hair was a ragged knot, constantly 
coming down behind, and that she never could enter upon 
any undertaking without first twisting it into place. At that 
particular moment, being newly come to the threshold to 
take a look out of doors, she was winding herself up with 
both hands after this fashion. And so prevalent was the 
fashion, that on the occasion of a fight or other disturbance 
in the Hole, the ladies would be seen flocking from all quarters 
universally twisting their back-hair as they came along, and 
many of them, in the hurry of the moment, carrying their 
back-combs in their mouths. 

It was a wretched little shop, with a roof that any man, 
standing in it could touch with his hand; little better than 
a cellar or cave, down three steps. Yet in its ill-lighted 
window, among a flaring handkerchief or two, an old peacoat 
or so, a few valueless watches and compasses, a jar of tobacco 
and two crossed pipes, a bottle of walnut ketchup, and some 
horrible sweets — these creature discomforts serving as a 
blind to the main business of the Leaving Shop — was dis- 
played the inscription Seaman’s Boarding-House. 

Taking notice of Pleasant Riderhood at the door, the man 


396 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


crossed so (juickly that she was still winding herself up, 
when he stood close before her. 

“ Is your father at home ? ’’ said he. 

“ I think he is,” returned Pleasant, dropping her arms; 
“ come in.” 

It was a tentative reply, the man having a seafaring appear- 
ance. Her father was not at home, and Pleasant knew it. 
‘ Take a seat by the fire,” were her hospitable words when 
she had got him in; “ men of your calling are always welcome 
here.” • 

“ Thankee,” said the man. 

His manner was the manner of a sailor, and his hands were 
the hands of a sailor, except that they were smooth. Pleasant 
had an'eye for sailors, and she noticed the unused colour and 
texture of the hands, sunburnt though they were, as sharply 
as she noticed their unmistakable looseness and suppleness, 
as he sat himself down with his left arm carelessly thrown 
across his left leg a little above the knee, and the right arm 
as carelessly thrown over the elbow of the wooden chair, 
with the hand curved, half open and half shut, as if it had 
just let go a rope. 

“ Might you be looking for a Boarding-House? ” Pleasant 
inquired, taking her observant stand on one side of the 
fire. 

“ I don’t rightly know my plans yet,” returned the man. 

“You ain’t looking for a Leaving Shop? ” 

“ No,” said the man. 

“ No,” assented Pleasant, “ you’ve got too much of an out- 
fit on you for that. But if you should want either, this is 
both.” 

“Ay, ay!” said the man, glancing round the place. “ I 
know. I’ve been here before.” 

“ Did you Leave anything when you were here before ? 
asked Pleasant, with a view to principal and interest. 

“ No.” The man shook his head. 

“ I am pretty sure you never boarded here ? ” 

“ No.” The man again shook his head. 

“ What did you do here when you were here before ? ” 
asked Pleasant. “ For I don’t remember you.” 

“ It’s not at all likely you should. I only stood at the 












MORE BIRDS OP PREY 


397 


door, one night — on the lower step there — while a shipmate 
of mine looked in to speak to your father. I remember the 
place well.’^ Looking very curiously round it. 

“ Might that have been long ago? ” 

“ Ay, a goodish bit ago. When I came off my last voy- 
age.’* 

“ Then you have not been to sea lately? ” 

“ No. Been in the sick bay since then, and been em- 
ployed ashore.” 

“ Then, to be sure, that accounts for your hands.” 

The man with a keen look, a quick smile, and a change of 
manner, caught her up. “ You’re a good observer. Yes. 
That accounts for my hands.” 

Pleasant was somewhat disquieted by his look, and re- 
turned it suspiciously. Not only was his change of manner, 
though very sudden, quite collected, but his former manner, 
which he resumed, had a certain suppressed confidence and 
sense of power in it that were half threatening. 

“ Will your father be long? ” he inquired. 

“ I don’t know. I can’t say.” 

“ As you supposed he was at home, it would seem that he 
has just gone out? How’s that? ” 

“ I supposed he had come home,” Pleasant explained. 

“Oh! You supposed he had come home? Then he has 
been some time out ? How’s that ? ” 

“ I don’t want to deceive you. Father’s on the river in 
his boat.” 

“ At the old work? ” asked the man. 

“ I don’t know what you mean,” sai4, Pleasant, shrinking 
a step back. “ What on earth d’ye want'? ” 

“ I don’t want to hurt your father. I don’t want to say 
I might, if I chose. I want to speak to him. Not much in 
that, is there? There shall be no secrets from you; you 
shall be by. And plainly. Miss Riderhood, there’s nothing 
to be got out of me, or made of me. I am not good for the 
Leaving Shop, I am not good for the Boarding-House, I 
am not good for anything in your way to the extent of six- 
penn’orth of halfpence. Put the idea aside, and we shall get 
on together.” 

“But you’re a seafaring man?” argued Pleasant, as if 


398 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


that were a sufficient reason for his being good for some- 
thing in her way. 

“ Yes and no. I have been, and I may be again. But 
I am not for you. Won’t you take my word for 
it?” 

The conversation had arrived at a crisis to justify Miss 
Pleasant’s hair in tumbling down. It tumbled down accord- 
ingly, and she twisted it up, looking from under her bent 
forehead at the man. In taking stock of his familiarly 
worn rough-weather nautical clothes, piece by piece, she took 
stock of a formidable knife in a sheath at his waist ready to 
his hand, and of a whistle hanging round his neck, and 
of a short ragged knotted club with a loaded head that 
peeped out of a pocket of his loose outer jacket or frock. 
He sat quietly looking at her; but, with these appendages 
partially revealing themselves, and with a quantity of bristling 
oakum-coloured head and whisker, he had a formidable 
appearance. 

“ Won’t you take my word for it? ” he asked again. 

Pleasant answered with a short dumb nod. He rejoined 
with another short dumb nod. Then he got up and stood 
with his arms folded in front of the fire, looking down into 
it occasionally, as she stood with her arms folded, leaning 
against the side of the chimneypiece. 

“ To while away the time till your father comes,” he said, 
— “ pray is there much robbing and murdering of seamen 
about the water-side now ? ” 

“ No,” said Pleasant. 

“Any?” 

“ Complaints of that sort are sometimes made, about Rat- 
cliff e and Wapping, and up that way. But who knows how 
many are true ? ” 

“ To be sure. And it don’t seem necessary.” 

“ That’s what I say,” observed Pleasant. “ Where’s the 
reason for it? Bless the sailors, it ain’t as if they ever could 
keep what they have, without it.” 

“ You’re right. Their money may be soon got out of 
them, without violence,” said the man. 

“ Of course it may,” said Pleasant; “ and then they ship 
again, and get more. And the best thing for ’em, too, to 


MORE BIRDS OF PREY 399 

ship again as soon as ever they can be brought to it. They're 
never so well off as when they’re afloat.” 

” I’ll tell you why I ask,” pursued the visitor, looking up 
' from the fire. “ I was once beset that way myself, and left 
for dead.” 

” No? ” said Pleasant. “ Where did it happen ? ” 

“ It happened,” returned the man, with a ruminative air, 
as he drew his right hand across his chin, and dipped the 
other in the pocket of his rough outer coat, “ it happened 
somewhere about here as I reckon. I don’t think it can have 
been a mile from here.” 

“ Were you drunk? ” asked Pleasant. 

“ I was muddled, but not with fair drinking. I had not 
been drinking, you understand. A mouthful did it.” 

Pleasant with a grave look shook her head; importing 
that she understood the process, but decidedly disapproved. 

“Fair trade is one thing,” said she, “ but that’s another. 
No one has a right to carry on with Jack in that way.” 

“ The sentiment does you credit,” returned the man, with 
a grim smile; and added, in a mutter, “ the more so, as I 
believe it’s not your father’s. — Yes, I had a bad time of it, 
that time. I lost everything, and had a sharp struggle for 
my life, weak as I was.” 

“ Did you get the parties punished ? ” asked Pleasant. 

“ A tremendous punishment followed,” said the man, more 
seriously; “ but it was not of my bringing about.” 

“ Of whose, then ? ” asked Pleasant. 

The man pointed upward with his forefinger, and, slowly 
recovering that hand, settled his chin in it again as he looked 
at the fire. Bringing her inherited eye to bear upon him. 
Pleasant Riderhood felt more and more uncomfortable, his 
manner was So mysterious, so stern, so self-possessed. 

“ Anyways,” said the damsel, “ I am glad punishment 
followed, and I say so. Fair trade with seafaring men gets 
a bad name through deeds of violence. I am as much against 
deeds of violence being done to seafaring men, as seafaring 
men can be themselves. I am of the same opinion as my 
mother was, when she was living. Fair trade, my mother 
used to say, but no robbery and no blows.” In the way of 
trade Miss Pleasant would have taken — and indeed did take 


400 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


when she could — as much as thirty shillings a week for board 
that would be dear at five, and likewise conducted the Leav- 
ing business upon correspondingly equitable principles; yet 
she had that tenderness of conscience and those feelings of 
humanity, that the moment her ideas of trade were over- 
stepped, she became the seaman’s champion, even against her 
father, whom she seldom otherwise resisted. 

But she was here interrupted by her father’s voice ex- 
claiming angrily, Now, Poll Parrot! ” and by her father’s 
hat being heavily flung from his hand and striking her face. 
Accustomed to such occasional manifestations of his sense 
of parental duty, Pleasant merely wiped her face on her hair 
(which of course had tumbled down) before she twisted it 
up. This was another common procedure on the part of 
the ladies of the Hole, when heated by verbal or fistic alter- 
cation. 

“ Blest if I believe such a Poll Parrot as you was ever 
learned to speak! ” growled Mr. Riderhood, stooping to pick 
up his hat, and making a feint- at her with his head and 
right elbow; for he took the delicate subject of robbing sea- 
men in extraordinary dudgeon, and was out of humour too. 
“ What are you Poll Parroting at now? Ain’t you got 
nothing to do but fold your arms and stand a Poll Parroting 
all night ? ” 

“ Let her alone,” urged the man. “ She was only speaking 
to me.” 

“ Let her alone too! ” retorted Mr. Riderhood, eyeing him 
all over. “ Do you know she’s my daughter? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And don’t you know that I won’t have no Poll Parroting 
on the part of my daughter? No, nor yet that I won’t take 
no Poll Parroting from no man? And who «may you be, 
and what may you want ? ” 

“ How can I tell you until you are silent? ” returned the 
other fiercely. 

“ Well,” said Mr. Riderhood, quailing a little, “ I am 
willing to be silent for the purpose of hearing. But don’t 
Poll Parrot me.” 

“ Are you thirsty, you ? ” the man asked, in the same 
fierce short way, after returning his look. 


MORE BIRDS OF PREY 401 

Why, nat’rally,” said Mr. Riderhood, “ ain't I always 
thirsty ? " (Indignant at the absurdity of the question.) 

“ What will you drink? ” demanded the man. 

“ Sherry wine,” returned Mr. Riderhood, in the same sharp 
tone, “ if you're capable of it.” 

The man put his hand in his pocket, took out half a sover- 
eign, and begged the favour of Miss Pleasant that she would 
fetch a bottle. “ With the cork undrawn,” he added, em- 
phatically, looking at her father. 

“ ril take my Alfred David,” muttered Mr. Riderhood, 
slowly relaxing into a dark smile, “ that you know a move. 
Do I know you f N-n-no, I don't know you.” 

The man replied, “ No, you don't know me.” And so 
they stood looking at one another surlily enough, until 
Pleasant came back. 

“ There’s small glasses on the shelf,” said Riderhood to his 
daughter. “ Give me the one without a foot. I gets my 
living by the sweat of my brow, and it’s good enough for 
me” This had a modest self-denying appearance; but it 
soon turned out that as, by reason of the impossibility of 
standing the glass upright while there was anything in it, 
it required to be emptied as soon as filled, Mr. Riderhood 
managed to drink in the proportion of three to one. 

With his Fortunatus’s goblet ready in his hand, Mr. 
Riderhood sat down on one side of the table before the fire, 
and the strange man on the other: Pleasant occupying a 
stool between the latter and the fireside. The background, 
composed of handkerchiefs, coats, shirts, hats, and other old 
articles “ On Leaving,” had a general dim resemblance to 
human listeners; especially where a shiny black sou’-wester 
suit and hat hung, looking very like a clumsy mariner with 
his back to the company, who was so curious to overhear, 
that he paused for the purpose with his coat half pulled on, 
and his shoulders up to his ears in the uncompleted action. 

The visitor first held the bottle against the light of the 
candle, and next examined the top of the cork. Satisfied 
that it had not been tampered with, he slowly took from his 
breast pocket a rusty clasp-knife, and, with a corkscrew in the 
handle, opened the wine. That done, he looked at the cork, 
unscrewed it from the corkscrew, laid each separately on the 


402 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


table, and, with the end of the sailor’s knot of his necker- 
chief, dusted the inside of the neck of the bottle. All this 
with great deliberation. 

At first Riderhood had sat with his footless glass extended 
at arm’s length for filling, while the very deliberate stranger 
seemed absorbed in his preparations. But gradually his arm 
reverted home to him, and his glass was lowered and lowered 
until he rested it upside down upon the table. By the same 
degrees his attention became concentrated on the knife. And 
now, as the man held out the bottle to fill all round. Rider- 
hood stood up, leaned over the table to look closer at the 
knife, and stared from it to him. 

“ What’s the matter? ” asked the man. 

Why, I know that knife! ” said Riderhood. 

“ Yes, I dare say you do.” 

He motioned to him to hold up his glass, and filled it. 
Riderhood emptied it to the last drop and began again. 

“ That there knife ” 

“ Stop,” said the man composedly. “ I was going to drink 
to your daughter. Your health. Miss Riderhood.” 

“ That knife was the knife of a seaman named George 
Radfoot.” 

“ It was.” 

“ That seaman was well beknown to me.” 

“ He was.” 

** What’s come to him ? ” 

Death has come to him. Death came to him in an ugly 
shape. He looked,” said the man, “ very horrible after it.” 

“ Arter what? ” said Riderhood, with a frowning stare. 

After he was killed.” 

‘‘Killed! Who killed him?” 

Only answering with a shrug, the man filled the footless 
glass, and Riderhood emptied it; looking amazedly from his 
daughter to his visitor. 

“ You don’t mean to tell a honest man — ” he was recom- 
mencing, with his empty glass in his hand, when his eye 
became fascinated by the stranger’s outer coat. He leaned 
across the table to see it nearer, touched the sleeve, turned 
the cuff to look at the sleeve-lining (the man, in his perfect 
composure, offering not the least objection), and exclaimed, 


MORE BIRDS OF PREY 403 

** It*s my belief as this here coat was George Radfoot’s 
too! ” 

“You are right. He wore it the last time you ever saw 
him, and the last time you ever will see him — in this 
world.” 

“ It’s my belief you mean to tell me to my face you killed 
him ! ” exclaimed Riderhood ; but, nevertheless, allowing his 
glass to be filled again. 

The man only answered with another shrug, and showed 
no symptom of confusion. 

“ Wish I may die if I know what to be up to with this 
chap I ” said Riderhood, after staring at him, and tossing his 
last glassful down his throat. “ Let’s know what to make of 
you. Say something plain.” 

“ I will,” returned the other, leaning forward across the 
table, and speaking in a low impressive voice. “ What a liar 
you are ! ” 

The honest witness rose, and made as though he would 
fling his glass in the man’s face. The man not wincing, and 
merely shaking his forefinger half knowingly, half menacingly, 
the piece of honesty thought better of it and sat down again, 
putting the glass down too. 

“ And when you went to that lawyer yonder in the Temple 
with that invented story,” said the stranger, in an exasperat- 
ingly comfortable sort of confidence, “ you might have had 
your strong suspicions of a friend of your own, you know. 
1 think you had, you know.” 

“ Me my susp'lcions ? Of what friend ? ” 

“Tell me again whose knife was this?” demanded the 
man. 

“ It was possessed by, and was the property of — him as I 
have made mention on,” said Riderhood, stupidly evading the 
actual mention of the name. 

“ Tell me again whose coat was this? ” 

“ That there article of clothing likeways belonged to, and 
was wore by — him as I have made mention on,” was again 
the dull Old Bailey evasion. 

“ I suspect that you gave him the credit of the deed, and 
of keeping cleverly out of the way. But there was small 
cleverness in his keeping out of the way. The cleverness 


404 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


would have been, to have got back for one single instant to 
the light of the sun.” 

“ Things is come to a pretty pass,” growled Mr. Riderhood, 
rising to his feet, goaded to stand at bay, “ when bullyers as 
is wearing dead men’s clothes, and bullyers as is armed with 
dead men’s knives, is to come into the houses of honest live 
men, getting their livings by the sweats of their brows, and 
is to make these here sort of charges with no rhyme and no 
reason, neither the one nor yet the other! Why should 1 
have had my suspicions of him ? ” 

“ Because you knew him,” replied the man; “ because you 
had been one with him, and knew his real character under a 
fair outside; because on the night which you had afterwards 
reason to believe to be the very night of the murder, he came 
in here, within an hour of his having left his ship in the 
docks, and asked you in what lodgings he could find room. 
Was there no stranger with him ? ” 

“ I’ll take my world-without-end everlasting Alfred David 
that YOU warn’t with him,” answered Riderhood. “ You talk 
big, you do, but things look pretty black against yourself, 
to my thinking. You charge again’ me that George Radfoot 
got lost sight of, and was no more thought of. What’s that 
for a sailor ? Why, there’s fifty such, out of sight and out of 
mind, ten times as long as him — through entering in different 
names, re-shipping when the out’ard voyage is made, and 
what not — a- turning up to light every day about here, and 
no matter made of it. Ask my daughter. You could go 
on Poll Parroting enough with her, when 1^ warn’t come in. 
Poll Parrot a little with her on this pint. You and your 
suspicions of my suspicions of him! What are my sus- 
picions of you? You tell me George Radfoot got killed. I 
ask you who done it, and how you know it ? You carry his 
knife and you wear his coat. I ask you how you come by 
’em? Hand over that there bottle!” Here Mr. Riderhood 
appeared to labour under a virtuous delusion that it was his 
own property. “ And you,” he added, turning to his daughter, 
as he filled the footless glass, “if it warn’t wasting good 
sherry wine on you. I’d chuck this at you for Poll Parroting 
with this man. It’s along of Poll Parroting that such like 
as him gets their suspicions, whereas I gets mine by arguey- 


MORE BIRDS OF PREY 


405 


merit, and being nat’rally a honest man, and sweating away 
at the brow as a honest man ought.” Here he filled the foot- 
less goblet again, and stood chewing one-half of its contents, 
and looking down into the other as he slowly rolled the wine 
about in the glass; while Pleasant, whose sympathetic hair 
had come down on her being apostrophised, re-arranged it, 
much in the style of the tail of a horse when proceeding to 
market to be sold. 

“ Well? Have you finished? ” asked the strange man. 

” No,” said Riderhood, “ I ain’t. Far from it. Now then ! 
I want to know how George Radfoot come by his death, and 
how you come by his kit ? ” 

“ If you ever do know, you won’t know now.” 

“And next I want to know,” proceeded Riderhood, 
“ whether you mean to charge that what-you-may-call-it 
murder ” 

“ Harmon murder, father,” suggested Pleasant. 

“No Poll Parroting!” he vociferated in return. “Keep 
your mouth shut! — I want to know, you sir, whether you 
charge that there crime on George Radfoot ? ” 

“ If you ever do know, you won’t know now.” 

“ Perhaps you done it yourself? ” said Riderhood, with a 
threatening action. 

“ I alone know,” returned the man, sternly shaking his head, 
“ the mysteries of that crime. I alone know that your 
trumped-up story cannot possibly be true. I alone know that 
it must be altogether false, and that you must know it to be 
altogether false. I came here to-night to tell you so much 
of what I know, and no more.” 

Mr. Riderhood, with his crooked eye upon his visitor, 
meditated for some moments, and then refilled his glass, and 
tipped the contents down his throat in three tips. 

“ Shut the shop-door! ” he then said to his daughter, 
putting the glass suddenly down. “And turn the key and 
stand by it! If you know all this, you sir,” getting, as he 
spoke, between the visitor and the door, “ why han’t you gone 
to Lawyer Lightwood ? ” 

“ That, also, is alone known to myself,” was the cool 
answer. 

“ Don’t you know that, if you didn’t do the deed, what you 


406 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


say you could tell is worth from five to ten thousand pound ? ” 
asked Riderhood. 

“ I know it very well, and when I claim the money you 
shall share it.” 

The honest man paused, and drew a little nearer to the 
visitor, and a little further from the door. 

“ I know it,” repeated the man, quietly, “ as well as I know 
that you and George Rad foot were one together in more than 
one dark business; and as well as I know that you, Roger 
Riderhood, conspired against an innocent man for blood- 
money ; and as well as I know that I can — and that I swear 
I will — give you up on both scores, and be the proof against 
you in my own person, if you defy me! ” 

“ Father! ” cried Pleasant, from the door. “ Don’t defy 
him ! Give way to him ! Don’t get into more trouble, father ! ” 

“ Will you leave off a Poll Parroting, I ask you ? ” cried 
Mr. Riderhood, half beside himself between the two. Then, 
propitiatingly and crawlingly: “ You sir! You han’t said 
what you want of me. Is it fair, is it worthy of yourself, to 
talk of my defying you afore ever you say what you want of 
me?” 

“ I don’t want much,” said the man. “ This accusation of 
yours must not be left half made and half unmade. What 
was done for the blood-money must be thoroughly undone.” 

“ Well; but. Shipmate ” 

“ Don’t call me Shipmate,” said the man. 

“Captain, then,” urged Mr. Riderhood; “there! You 
won’t object to Captain. It’s a honourable title, and you 
fully look it. Captain! Ain’t the man dead? Now I ask 
you fair. Ain’t Gaffer dead ? ” 

“ Well,” returned the other, with impatience, “ yes, he is 
dead. What then ? ” 

“ Can words hurt a dead man. Captain ? I only ask you 
fair.” 

“ They can hurt the memory of a dead man, and they can 
hurt his living children. How many children had this man ? ” 

“ Meaning Gaffer, Captain ? ” 

“ Of whom else are we speaking? ” returned the other, with 
a movement of his foot, as if Rogue Riderhood were beginning 
to sneak before him in the body as well as the spirit, and he 


MORE BIRDS OF PREY 


407 


spurned him off. “ I have heard of a daughter and a son. I 
ask for information; I ask your daughter; I prefer to speak 
to her. What children did Hexam leave ? ” 

Pleasant, looking to her father for permission to reply, that 
honest man exclaimed with great bitterness: 

“ Why the devil don’t you answer the Captain? You can 
Poll Parrot enough when you ain’t wanted to Poll Parrot, 
you perwerse jade! ” 

Thus encouraged. Pleasant exclaimed that there were only 
Lizzie, the daughter in question, and the youth. Both very 
respectable, she added. 

“ It is dreadful that any stigma should attach to them,” 
said the visitor, whom the consideration rendered so uneasy 
that he rose, and paced to and fro, muttering, “ Dreadful! 
Unforeseen! How could it be foreseen? ” Then he stopped, 
and asked aloud: “ Where do they live? ” 

Pleasant further explained that only the daughter had 
resided with the father at the time of his accidental death, 
and that she had immediately afterwards quitted the neigh- 
bourhood. 

“ I know that,” said the man, “ for I have been to the 
place they dwelt in, at the time of the inquest. Could you 
quietly find out for me where she lives now ? ” 

Pleasant had no doubt she could do that. Within what 
time did she think? Within a day. The visitor said that 
was well, and he would return for the information, relying on 
its being obtained. To this dialogue Riderhood had attended 
in silence, and he now obsequiously bespake the Captain. 

Captain ! Mentioning them unfort’ net words of mine 
respecting Gaffer, it is contrairily to be bore in mind that 
Gaffer always were a precious rascal, and that his line were 
a thieving line. Likeways when I went to them two Govern- 
ors, Lawyer Lightwood and the t’other Governor, with my 
information, I may have been a little over-eager for the cause 
of justice, or (to put it another way) a little over-stimulated 
by them feelings which rouses a man up, when a pot of money 
is going about, to get his hand into that pot of money 
for his family’s sake. Besides which, I think the wine of 
them two Governors was — I will not say a hocussed wine, 
but fur from a wine as was elthy for the mind. And there’s 


408 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


another thing to be remembered, Captain. Did I stick to 
them words when Gaffer was no more, and did I say bold to 
them two Governors, ‘ Governors both, wot I informed I 
still inform; wot was took down I hold to?’ No. I says, 
frank and open — no shuffling, mind you. Captain ! — ‘I 
may have been mistook, I’ve been a thinking of it, it mayn’t 
have been took down correct on this and that, and I won’t 
swear to thick and thin, I’d rayther forfeit your good opinions 
than do it.’ And so far as I know,” concluded Mr, Rider- 
hood, by way of proof and evidence to character, “ I have 
actiwally forfeited the good opinions of several persons — 
even your own. Captain, if I understand your words — but 
I’d sooner do it than be forswore. There; if that’s conspiracy, 
call me conspirator.” 

“ You shall sign,” said the visitor, taking very little heed 
of this oration, “ a statement that it was all utterly false, 
and the poor girl shall have it. I will bring it with me for 
your signature, when I come again.” 

“ When might you be expected, Captain ? ” inquired Rider^ 
hood, again dubiously getting between him and the door. 

“ Quite soon enough for you. I shall not disappoint you ; 
don’t be afraid.” 

“ Might you be inclined to leave any name, Captain? ” 

‘‘ No, not at all. I have no such intention.” 

“‘Shall’ is summ’at of a hard word. Captain,” urged 
Riderhood, still feebly dodging between him and the door, 
as he advanced. “ When you say a man ‘ shall ’ sign this 
and that and t’other. Captain, you order him about in a 
grand sort of a way. Don’t it seem so to yourself? ” 

The man stood still, and angrily fixed him with his eyes. 

“ Father, father! ” entreated Pleasant, from the door, with 
her disengaged hand nervously trembling at her lips; “ don’t! 
Don’t get into trouble any more ! ” 

“ Hear me out. Captain, hear me out! All I was wishing 
to mention, Captain, afore, you took your departer,” said the 
sneaking Mr. Riderhood, falling out of his path, “ was, your 
handsome words relating to the reward.” 

“ When I claim it,” said the man, in a tone which seemed 
to leave some such words as “ you dog,” very distinctly 
understood, “ you shall share it.” 


MORE BIRDS OF- PREY 


409 


Looking steadfastly at Riderhood, he once more said in 
a low voice, this time with a grim sort of admiration of him 
as a perfect piece of evil, “ What a liar you are! ” and, nod- 
ding his head twice or thrice over the compliment, passed 
out of the shop. But to Pleasant he said good night kindly. 

The honest man who gained his living by the sweat of 
his brow remained in a state akin to stupefaction, until the 
footless glass and the unfinished bottle conveyed themselves 
into his mind. From his mind he conveyed them into his 
hands, and so conveyed the last of the wine into his stomach. 
When that was done, he awoke to a clear perception that 
Poll Parroting was solely chargeable with what had passed. 
Therefore, not to be remiss in his duty as a father, he threw 
a pair of sea-boots at Pleasant, which she ducked to avoid, 
and then cried, poor thing, using her hair for a pocket- 
handkerchief. 


CHAPTER XIII 


A SOLO AND A DUET 

The wind was blowing so hard when the visitor came out at 
the shop-door into the darkness and dirt of Limehouse Hole, 
that it almost blew him in again. Doors were slamming 
violently, lamps were flickering or blown out, signs were 
rocking in their frames, the water of the kennels, wind- 
dispersed, flew about in drops like rain. Indifferent to the 
weather, and even preferring it to better weather for its 
clearance of the streets, the man looked about him with 
a scrutinising glance. “ Thus much I know,” he murmured. 
” I have never been here since that night, and never was 
here before that night, but thus much I recognise. I wonder 
which way did we take when we came out of that shop. 
We turned to the right as I have turned, but I can recall 
no more. Did we go by this alley ? Or down that little 
lane ? ” 

He tried both, but both confused him equally, and he 
came straying back to the same spot. “ I remember there 
were poles pushed out of upper windows on which clothes 
wece drying, and I remember a low public-house, and the 
sound flowing down a narrow passage belonging to it of the 
scraping of a Addle and the shuffling of feet. But here are 
all these things in the lane, and here are all these things in 
the alley. And I have nothing else in my mind but a wall, 
a dark doorway, a flight of stairs, and a room.” 

He tried a new direction, but made nothing of it; walls, 
dark doorways, flights of stairs and rooms, were too abundant. 
And, like most people so puzzled, he again and again de- 
scribed a circle, and found himself at the point from which 
he had begun. ” This is like what I have read in narratives 


A SOLO AND A DUET 


411 


of escape from prison,” said he, ” where the little track of 
the fugitives in* the night always seems to take the shape 
of the great round world on which they wander; as if it 
were a secret law.” 

Here he ceased to be the oakum-headed, oakum-whiskered 
man on whom Miss Pleasant Riderhood had looked, and, 
allowing for his being still wrapped in a nautical overcoat, 
became as like that same lost wanted Mr. Julius Handford 
as never man was like another in this world. In the breast 
of the coat he stowed the bristling hair and whisker, in a 
moment, as the favouring wind went with him down a solitary 
place that it had swept clear of passengers. Yet in that same 
moment he was the Secretary also, Mr. Boffin’s Secretary. 
For John Rokesmith, too, was as like that same lost wanted 
Mr. Julius Handford as never man was like another in this 
world. 

“ I have no clue to the scene of my death,” said he. “ Not 
that it matters now. But having risked discovery by ventur- 
ing here at all, I should have been glad to track some part 
of the way.” With which singular words he abandoned his 
search, came up out of Limehouse Hole, and took the way 
past Limehouse Church. At the great iron gate of the 
churchyard , he stopped and looked in. He looked up at the 
high tower spectrally resisting the wind, and he looked 
round at the white tombstones, like enough to the dead 
in their winding-sheets, and he counted the nine toils of 
the clock-bell. 

“ It is a sensation not experienced by many mortals,” said 
he, “ to be looking into a churchyard on a wild windy night, 
and to feel that I no more hold a place among the living 
than these dead do, and even to know that I lie buried some- 
where else, as they lie buried here. Nothing uses me to it. 
A spirit that was once a man could hardly feel stranger or 
lonelier, going unrecognised among mankind than I feel. 

“ But this is the fanciful side of the situation^ It has 
a real side, so difficult that, though I think of it every day, 
I never thoroughly think it out. Now, let me determine to 
think it out as I walk home. I know I evade it, as many 
men — perhaps most men — do evade thinking their way 
through their greatest perplexity. I will try to pin myself 


412 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


to mine. Don't evade it, John Harmon; don’t evade it; 
think it out! * 

“ When I came back to England, attracted to the country 
with which I had none but most miserable associations, b)' 
the accounts of my fine inheritance that found Ine abroad, 
I came back, shrinking from my father’s money, shrinking 
from my father’s memory, mistrustful of being forced oii 
a mercenary wife, mistrustful of my father’s intention in 
thrusting that marriage on me, mistrustful that I was already 
growing avaricious, mistrustful that I was slackening in 
gratitude to the two dear noble honest friends wdio had made 
the only sunlight of my childish life or that of my heart- 
broken sister. I came back timid, divided in my mind, 
afraid of myself and everybody here, knowing of nothing but 
wretchedness that my father’s wealth had ever brought about. 
Now stop, and so far think it out, John Harmon. Is that 
so ? That is exactly so. 

“ On board, serving as third mate, was George Radfoot. 
I knew nothing of him. His name first became known to 
me about a week before we sailed, through my being accosted 
by one of the ship agent’s clerks as ‘ Mr. Radfoot.’ It w’as 
one day when I had gone aboard to look to my preparations, 
and the clerk, coming behind me as I stood on deck, tapped 
me on the shoulder, and said, ‘ Mr. Radfoot, look here,’ 
referring to some papers that he had in his hand. And my 
name first became known to Radfoot, through another clerk 
within a day or two, and while the ship was yet in port, 
coming up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder and 

beginning, ‘ I beg your pardon, Mr. Harmon ’ I believe 

we were alike in bulk and stature, but not otherwise, and 
that we were not strikingly alike, even in those respects, 
when w^e were together and could be compared. 

“ However, a sociable word or two on these mistakes be- 
came an easy introduction between us, and the w^eather was 
hot, and he helped me to a cool cabin on deck alongside his 
own, and his first school had been at Brussels as mine had 
been, and he had learnt French as I had learnt it, and he 
had a little history of himself to relate — God only knows 
how much of it true, and how much of it false — that had its 


A SOLO AND A DUET 


413 


likeness to mine. I had been a seaman too. So we got to 
be confidential together, and the more easily yet, because he 
and every one on board had known by general rumour what 
I was making the voyage to England for. By such degrees 
and means, he came to the knowledge of my uneasiness 
of mind, and of its setting at that time in the direction of 
desiring to see and form some judgment of my allotted wife, 
before she could possibly know me for myself; also to try 
Mrs. Boffin and give her a glad surprise. So the plot was 
made out of our getting common sailor’s dresses (as he 
was able to guide me about London), and throwing our- 
selves in Bella Wilfer’s neighbourhood, and trying to put 
ourselves in her way, and doing whatever chance might 
favour on the spot, and seeing what came of it. If nothing 
came of it, I should be no worse off, and there would merely 
be a short delay in my presenting myself to Light wood. 
I have all these facts right? Yes. They are all accurately 
right. 

“ His advantage in all this was, that for a time I was to 
be lost. It might be for a day or for two days, but I must 
be lost sight of on landing, or there would be recognition, 
anticipation, and failure. Therefore, I disembarked with my 
valise in my hand — as Potterson the steward and Mr. Jacob 
Kibble my fellow-passenger afterwards remembered — and 
waited for him in the dark by that very Limehouse Church 
which is now behind me. 

“As I had always shunned the port of London, I only 
knew the church through his pointing out its spire from 
on board. Perhaps I might recall, if it were any good to 
try, the way by which I went to it alone from the river; 
but how we two went from it to Riderhood’s shop I don’t 
know — any more than I know what turns we took and 
doubles we made, after we left it. The way was purposely 
confused, no doubt. 

“ But let me go on thinking the facts out, and avoid con- 
fusing them with my speculations. Whether he took me by 
a straight way or a crooked way, what is that to the purpose 
now? Steady, John Harmon. 

“ When we stopped at Riderhood’s, and he asked that 
scoundrel a question or two, purporting to refer only to the 


414 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


lodging-houses in which there was accommodation for us, had 
I the least suspicion of him ? None. Certainly none until after- 
wards, when I held the clue. I think he must have got from 
Riderhood, in a paper, the drug, or whatever it was, that after- 
wards stupefied me, but I am far from sure. All I felt safe 
in charging on him to-night was old companionship in villainy 
between them. Their undisguised intimacy, and the character 
I now know Riderhood to bear, made that not at all adven- 
turous. But I am not clear about the drug. Thinking out 
the circumstances on which I found my suspicion, they are 
only two. One: I remember his changing a small folded 
paper from one pocket to another after we came out, which 
he had not touched before. Two: I now know Riderhood 
to have been previously taken up for being concerned in the 
robbery of an unlucky seaman, to whom some such poison 
had been given. 

“ It is my conviction that we cannot have gone a mile from 
that shop before we came to the wall, the dark doorway, the 
flight of stairs, and the room. The night was particularly 
dark, and it rained hard. As I think the circumstances back, 
I hear the rain splashing on the stone pavement of the passage, 
which was not under cover. The room overlooked the river, 
or a dock, or a creek, and the tide was out. Being possessed 
of the time down to that point, I know by the hour that it 
must have been about low water; but while the coffee was 
getting ready, I drew back the curtain (a dark-brown cur- 
tain), and, looking out, knew by the kind of reflection below, 
of the few neighbouring lights, that they were reflected in 
tidal mud. 

“ He had carried under his arm a canvas bag, containing 
a suit of his clothes. I had no change of outer clothes with 
me, as I was to buy slops. ‘ You are very wet, Mr. Harmon,’ 
— I can hear him saying, — ‘ and I am quite dry under this 
good waterproof coat. Put on these clothes of mine. You 
may find, on trying them, that they will answer your purpose 
to-morrow as well as the slops you mean to buy, or better. 
While you change. I’ll hurry the hot coffee.’ When he came 
back I had his clothes on, and there was a blaek man wdth 
him, wearing a linen jacket, like a steward, who put the 
smoking coffee on the table in a tray, and never looked at 


A SOLO AND A DUET 415 

me. I am so far literal and exact ? lateral and exact, I am 
certain. 

“ Now I pass to sick and deranged impressions; they are 
so strong that I rely upon them; but there are spaces between 
them that I know nothing about, and they are not pervaded 
by any idea of time. 

“ I had drank some coffee, when to my sense of sight he 
began to swell immensely and something urged me to rush 
at him. We had, a struggle near the door. He got from 
me, through my not knowing where to strike, in the whirling 
round of the room, and the flashing of flames of fire between 
us. I dropped down. Lying helpless on the ground, I was 
turned over by a foot. I was dragged by the neck into a 
corner. I heard men speak together. I was turned over by 
other feet. I saw a figure like myself lying dressed in my 
clothes on a bed. What might have been, for anything I 
knew, a silence of days, weeks, months, years, was broken by 
a violent wrestling of men all over the room. The figure 
like myself was assailed, and my valise was in its hand. I 
was trodden upon and fallen over. I heard a noise of blows, 
and thought it was a wood-cutter cutting down a tree. I 
could not have said that my name was John Harmon — I 
could not have thought it — I didn’t know it — but when 
I heard the blows, I thought of the wood-cutter and his axe, 
and had some dead idea that I was lying in a forest. 

“This is still correct? Still correct, with the exception 
that I cannot possibly express it to myself without using the 
word I. But it was not I. There was no such thing as I, 
within my knowledge. « 

“ It was only after a downward slide through something 
like a tube, and then a great noise and a sparkling and a 
crackling as of fires, that the consciousness came upon me, 
‘ This is John Harmon drowning! John Harmon, struggle 
for your life. John Harmon, call on Heaven and save your- 
self! ’ I think I cried it out aloud in a great agony, and 
then a heavy horrid unintelligible something vanished, and 
it was I who was struggling there alone in the water. 

“ I was very weak and faint, frightfully oppressed with 
drowsiness, and driving fast with the tide. Looking over the 
black water, I saw the lights racing past me on the two banks 


416 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


of the river, as if they were eager to be gone and leave me 
dying in the dark. The tide was running down, but I knew 
nothing of up or down then. When, guiding myself safely 
with Heaven’s assistance before the fierce set of the water, I 
at last caught at a boat moored, one of a tier of boats at a 
causeway, I was sucked under her, and came up, only just 
alive, on the other side. 

“ Was I long in the water? Long enough to be chilled to 
the heart, but I don’t know how long. Yet the cold was 
merciful, for it was the cold night air and the rain that 
restored me from a swoon on the stones of the causeway. 
They naturally supposed me to have toppled in, drunk, when 
I crept to the public-house it belonged to; for I had no 
notion where I was, and could not articulate — through the 
poison that had made me insensible having affected my speech 
— and I supposed the night to be the previous night, as it 
was still dark and raining. But I had lost twenty-four 
hours. 

“ I have checked the calculation often, and it must have 
been two nights that I lay recovering in that public-house. 
Let me see. Yes. I am sure it was while I lay in that bed 
there, that the thought entered my head of turning the 
danger I had passed through, to the account of being for 
some time supposed to have disappeared mysteriously, and 
of proving Bella. The dread of our being forced on one 
another, and perpetuating the fate that seemed to have fallen 
on my father’s riches — the fate that they should lead to 
nothing but evil — was strong upon the moral timidity that 
dates frofn my childhood with my poor sister. 

‘‘As to this hour I cannot understand that side of the 
river where I recovered the shore, being the opposite side to 
that on which I was ensnared, I shall never understand it 
now. Even at this moment, while I leave the river behind 
me, going home, I cannot conceive that it rolls between me 
and that spot, or that the sea is where it is. But this Is not 
thinking it out; this is making a leap to the present time. 

“ I could not have done it, but for the fortune in the 
waterproof belt round my body. Not a great fortune, forty 
and odd pounds for the inheritor of a hundred and odd 
thousand! But it was enough. Without it, I must have 






A SOLO AND A DUET 


417 


disclosed myself. Without it, I could never have gone to that 
Exchequer Coffee House, or taken Mrs. WilfeEs lodg- 
ings. 

“ Some twelve days I lived at that hotel, before the night 
when I saw the corpse of Radfoot at the Police Station. 
The inexpressible mental horror that I laboured under, as 
one of the consequences of the poison, makes the interval 
seem greatly longer, but I know it cannot have been longer. 
That suffering has gradually weakened and weakened since, 
and has only come upon me by starts, and I hope I am free 
from it now, but even now I have sometimes to think, con- 
strain myself, and stop before speaking, or I could not 
say the words I want to say. 

“Again I ramble away from thinking it out to the end. 
It is not so far to the end that I need be tempted to break 
off. Now, on straight! 

“ I examined the newspapers every day for tidings that 
I was missing, but saw none. Going out that night to walk 
(for I kept retired while it was light), I found a crowd as- 
sembled round a placard posted at Whitehall. It described 
myself, John Harmon, as found dead and mutilated in the 
river under circumstances of strong suspicion, described my 
dress, described the papers in my pockets, and stated where I 
was lying for recognition. In a wild incautious way I hurried 
there, and there — with the horror of the death I had escaped 
before my eyes in its most appalling shape, added to the 
inconceivable horror tormenting me at that time when the 
poisonous stuff was strongest on me — I perceived that Rad- 
foot had been murdered by some unknown hands for the 
money for which he would have murdered me, and that 
probably we had* both been shot into the river from the 
same dark place into the same dark tide, when the stream 
ran deep and strong. 

“ That night I almost gave up my mystery, though I 
suspected no one, could offer no information, knew absolutely 
nothing save that the murdered man was not I, but Radfoot. 
Next day while I hesitated, and next day while I hesitated, 
it seemed as if the whole country were determined to have 
me dead. The Inquest declared me dead, the Government 
proclaimed me dead ; I could not listen at my fireside for five 


418 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


minutes to the outer noises, but it was borne into my ears 
that I was dead. 

So John Harmon died, and Julius Handford disappeared, 
and John Rokesmith was born. John Rokesmith’s intent 
to-night has been to repair a wrong, that he could never have 
imagined possible, coming to his ears through the Lightwood 
talk related to him, and which he is bound by every con- 
sideration to remedy. In that intent John Rokesmith will 
persevere, as his duty is. 

“ Now, is it all thought out? All to this time? Nothing 
omitted? No, nothing. But beyond this time? To think 
it out through the future is a harder though a much shorter 
task than to think it out through the past. John Harmon 
is dead. Should John Harmon come to life? 

“ If yes, why ? If no, why ? 

“ Take yes, first. To enlighten human Justice concerning 
the offence of one far beyond it, who may have a living 
mother. To enlighten it with the lights of a stone passage, 
a flight of stairs, a brown window-curtain, and black man. 
To come into possession of my father’s money, and wfith it 
sordidly to buy a beautiful creature whom I love — I cannot 
help it; reason has nothing to do with it; I love her against 
reason — but who would as soon love me for my owm sake, as 
she would love the beggar at the corner. What a use for 
the money, and how worthy of its old misuses! 

“ Now, take no. The reasons why John Harmon should 
not come to life. Because he has passively allowed these 
dear old faithful friends to pass into possession of the property. 
Because he sees them happy with it, making a good use of 
it, effacing the old rust and tarnish on the money. Because 
they have virtually adopted Bella, and will provide for her. 
Because there is affection enough in her nature, and warmth 
enough in her heart, to develop into something enduringly 
good under favourable conditions. Because her faults have 
been intensified by her place in my father’s will, and she is 
already growing better. Because her marriage with John 
Harmon, after what I have heard from her own lips, would be 
a shocking mockery, of which both she and I must always be 
conscious, and which would degrade her in her mind, and 
me in mine, and each of us in the other’s. Because if John 


A SOLO AND A DUET 419 

Harmon comes to life and does not marry her, the property 
falls into the very hands that hold it now. 

What would I have ? Dead, I have found the true 
friends of my lifetime still as true, as tender, and as faithful 
as when I was alive, and making my memory an incentive to 
good actions done in my name. Dead, I have found them, 
when they might have slighted my name and passed greedily 
over my grave to ease and wealth, lingering by the way, like 
single-hearted children, to recall their love for me when I 
was a poor frightened child. Dead, I have heard from the 
woman who would have been my wife if I had lived, the 
revolting truth that I should have purchased her, caring 
nothing for me, as a Sultan buys a slave. 

“What would I have? If the dead could know, or do 
know, how the living use them, who among the hosts of dead 
has found a more disinterested fidelity on earth than I ? Is 
not that enough for me? If I had come back, these noble 
creatures would have welcomed me, wept over me, given up 
everything to me with joy. I did not come back, and they 
have passed unspoiled into my place. Let them rest in it, 
and let Bella rest in hers. 

“ What course for me then ? This, To live the same quiet 
Secretary life, carefully avoiding chances of recognition, until 
they shall have become more accustomed to their altered 
state, and until the great swarm of swindlers under many 
names shall have found newer prey. By that time, the 
method I am establishing through all the affairs, and with 
which I will every day take new pains to make them both 
familiar, will be, I may hope, a machine in such working 
order as that they can keep it going. I know I need but ask 
of their generosity to have. When the right time comes, I 
will ask no more than will replace me in my former path of 
life, and John Rokesmith shall tread it as contentedly as he 
may. But John Harmon shall come back no more. 

“ That I may never, in the days to come afar off, have any 
weak misgiving that Bella might, in any contingency, have 
taken me for my own sake if I had plainly asked her, I will 
plainly ask her: proving beyond all question what I already 
know too well. And now it is all thought out, from the 
beginning to the end, and my mind is easier.” 


420 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


So deeply engaged had the living- dead man been, in thus 
communing with himself, that he had regarded neither the 
wind nor the way, and had resisted the former as instinctively 
as he had pursued the latter. But being now come into the 
City, where there was a coach-stand, he stood irresolute 
whether to go to his lodgings, or to go first to Mr. Boffin’s 
house. He decided to go round by the house, arguing, as he 
carried his overcoat upon his arm, that it was less likely to 
attract notice if left there, than if taken to Holloway: both 
Mrs. Wilfer and Miss Lavinia being ravenously curious 
touching every article of which the lodger stood possessed. 

Arriving at the house, he found that Mr. and Mrs. Boffin 
were out, but that Miss Wilfer was in the drawing-room. 
Miss Wilfer had remained at home in consequence of not 
feeling very well, and had inquired in the evening if Mr. 
Rokesmith were in his room. 

“ Make my compliments to Miss Wilfer, and say I am 
here now.” 

MissWilfer’s compliments came down in return, and if it 
were not too much trouble, would Mr. Rokesmith be so kind 
as to come up before he went ? 

It was not too much trouble, and Mr. Rokesmith came 
up. 

Oh, -she looked very pretty, she looked very, very pretty! 
If the father of the late John Harmon had but left his money 
unconditionally to his son, and if his son had but lighted 
on this lovable girl for himself, and had the happiness to 
make her loving as well as lovable! 

“ Dear me! Are you not well, Mr. Rokesmith? ” 

“Yes, quite well. I was sorry to hear, when I came in, 
that you were not.” 

“ A mere nothing. I had a headache — gone now — and 
was not quite fit for a hot theatre, so I stayed at home. I 
asked you if you were not well, because you looked so white.” 

“ Do I? I have had a busy evening.” 

She was on a low ottoman before the fire, with a little 
shining jewel of a table, and her book and her work, beside 
her. Ah! what a different life the late John Harmon’s, if it 
had been his happy privilege to take his place upon that 
ottoman, and draw his arm about that waist, and say, “ I hope 


A SOLO AND A DUET 421 

the time has been long without me ? What a Home Goddess 
you look, my darling!” 

But the present John Rokesmith, far removed from the 
late John Harmon, remained standing at a distance. A 
little distance in respect of space, but a great distance in 
respect of separation. 

“ Mr. Rokesmith,” said Bella, taking up her work, and 
inspecting it all round the corners, “ I wanted to say some- 
thing to you when I could have the opportunity, as an ex- 
planation why I was rude to you the other day. You have 
no right to think ill of me, sir.” 

The sharp little way in which she darted a look at him, 
half sensitively injured, and half pettishly, would have been 
very much admired by the late John Harmon. 

” You don’t know how well I think of you, Miss Wilfer.” 

“ Truly you must have a very high opinion of me, Mr. 
Rokesmith, when you believe that in prosperity I neglect 
and forget my old home.” 

“ Do I believe so? ” 

“ You did, sir, at any rate,” returned Bella. 

“ I took the liberty of reminding you of a little omission 
into which you had fallen — insensibly and naturally fallen. 
It was no more than that.” 

“ And I beg leave to ask you, Mr. Rokesmith,” said Bella, 
“ why you took that liberty ? — I hope there is no offence in 
the phrase; it is your own, remember.” 

” Because I am truly, deeply, profoundly interested in you. 
Miss Wilfer. Because I wish to see you always at your best. 
Because I shall I go on ? ” 

” No, sir,” returned Bella, with a burning face, ” you have 
said more than enough. I beg that you will not go on. If you 
have any generosity, any honour, you will say no more.” 

The late John Harmon, looking at the proud face with 
the downcast eyes, and at the quick breathing as it stirred 
the fall of bright brown hair over the beautiful neck, would 
probably have remained silent. 

“ I wish to speak to you, sir,” said Bella, “ once for all, and 
I don’t know how to do it. I have sat here all this evening, 
wishing to speak to you, and determining to speak to you, 
and feeling that I must. I beg for a moment’s time.” 


422 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


He remained silent, and she remained with her face 
averted, sometimes making a slight movement as if she would 
turn and speak. At length she did so. 

“You know how I am situated here, sir, and you know 
how I am situated at home. I must speak to you for myself, 
since there is no one about me whom I could ask to do so. 
It is not generous in you, it is not honourable in you, to 
conduct yourself towards me as you do.^^ 

“Is it ungenerous or dishonourable to be devoted to you; 
fascinated by you ? ” 

“Preposterous!” said Bella. 

The late John Harmon might have thought it rather a 
contemptuous and lofty word of repudiation. 

“ I now feel obliged to go on,” pursued the Secretary, 
“ though it were only in self-explanation and self-defence. I 
hope. Miss Wilfer, that it is not unpardonable — even in me 
— to make an honest declaration of an honest devotion to 
you.” 

“An honest declaration! ” repeated Bella, with emphasis. 

“Is it otherwise?” 

“ I must request, sir,” said Bella, taking refuge in a touch 
of kindly resentment, “ that I may not be questioned. You 
must excuse me if I decline to be cross-examined.” 

“ Oh, Miss Wilfer, this is hardly charitable. I ask you 
nothing but what your own emphasis suggests. However, I 
waive even that question. But what I have declared, I take 
my stand by. I cannot recall the avowal of my earnest and 
deep attachment to you, and I do not recall it.” 

“ I reject it, sir,” said Bella. 

“ I should be blind and deaf if I were not prepared for 
the reply. Forgive my offence, for it carries its punishment 
with it.” 

“What punishment?” asked Bella. 

“ Is my present endurance none? But excuse me; I did 
not mean to cross-examine you again.” 

“ You take advantage of a hasty word of mine,” said Bella, 
with a little sting of self-reproach, “ to make me seem — I 
don’t know what. I spoke without consideration when I used 
it. If that was bad, I am sorry; but you repeat it after 
consideration, and that seems to me to be at least no better. 


A SOLO AND A DUET 423 

For the rest, I beg it may be understood, Mr. Rokesmith, 
that there is an end of this between us, now and for ever.’* 

“ Now and for ever,” he repeated. 

“ Yes. I appeal to you, sir,” proceeded Bella, with increas- 
ing spirit, “ not to pursue me. I appeal to you not to take 
advantage of your position in this house to make my position 
in it distressing and disagreeable. I appeal to you to dis- 
continue your habit of making your misplaced attentions as 
plain to Mrs. Boffin as to me.” 

“ Have I done so? ” 

“ I should think you have,” replied Bella. “ In any case 
it is not your fault if you have not, Mr. Rokesmith.” 

I hope you are wrong in that impression. I should, be 
very sorry to have justified it. I think I have not. For 
the future there is no apprehension. It is all over.” 

“ I am much relieved to hear it,” said Bella. “ I have far 
other views in life, and why should you waste your own ? ” 
Mine! ” said the Secretary. “ My life! ” 

His curious tone caused Bella to glance at the curious smile 
with which he said it. It was gone as he glanced back. 
“ Pardon me. Miss Wilfer,” he proceeded, when their eyes 
met; “you have used some hard words, for which I do not 
doubt you have a justification in your mind, that I do not 
understand. Ungenerous and dishonourable in what?” 

“ I would rather not be asked,” said Bella, haughtily look- 
ing down. 

“ I would rather not ask, but the question is imposed upon 
me. Kindly explain; or if not kindly, justly.” 

“ Oh, sir! ” said Bella, raising her eyes to his, after a little 
struggle to forbear, “is it generous and honourable to use 
the power here which your favour with Mr. and Mrs. Boffin 
and your ability in your place give you, against me ? ” 

“ Against you ? ” 

“ Is it generous and honourable to form a plan for gradually 
bringing their influence to bear upon a suit which I have 
shown you that I do not like, and which I tell you that I 
utterly reject ? ” 

The late John Harmon could have borne a good deal, but 
he would have been cut to the heart by such a suspicion as 
this. 


424 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Would it be generous and honourable to step into youi 
place — if you did so, for I don’t know that you did, and 
I hope you did not — anticipating, or knowing beforehand, 
that I should come here, and designing to take me at this 
disadvantage ? ” 

“ This mean and cruel disadvantage,” said the Secretary. 

“ Yes,” assented Bella. 

The Secretary kept silence for a little while; then merely 
said, “You are wholly mistaken. Miss Wilfer; wonderfully 
mistaken. I cannot say, however, that it is your fault. If 
I deserve better things of you, you do not know it.” 

“At least, sir,” retorted Bella, with her old indignation 
rising, “ you know the history of my being here at all. I 
have heard Mr. Boffin say that you are master of every line 
and word of that will, as you are master of all his affairs. 
And was it not enough that I should have been willed away, 
like a horse, or a dog, or a bird ; but must you too begin to 
dispose of me in your mind, and speculate in me, as soon as 
I had ceased to be the talk and the laugh of the town ? Am 
I for ever to be made the property of strangers ? ” 

“ Believe me,” returned the Secretary, “ you are wonder- 
fully mistaken.” 

“ I should be glad to know it,” answered Bella. 

“ I doubt if you ever will. Good night. Of course I shall 
be careful to conceal any traces of this interview from Mr. 
and Mrs. Boffin, as long as I remain here. Trust me, what 
you have complained of is at an end for ever.” 

“ I am glad I have spoken, then, Mr. Rokesmith. It has 
been painful and difficult, but it is done. If I have hurt 
you, I hope you will forgive me. I am inexperienced and 
impetuous, and I have been a little spoilt; but I really am 
not so bad as I dare say I appear, or as you think me.” 

He quitted the room when Bella had said this, relenting in 
her wilful inconsistent way. Left alone, she threw herself 
back on her ottoman, and said, “ I didn’t know the lovely 
woman was such a Dragon! ” Then she got up and looked 
in the glass, and said to her image, “ You have been posi- 
tively swelling your features, you little fool!” Then she 
took an impatient walk to the other end of the room and 
back, and said, “ I wish Pa was here to have a talk about an 


A SOLO AND A DUET 


425 


avaricious marriage; but he is better away, poor dear, for 
I know I should pull his hair if he was here.” And then 
she threw her work away, and threw her book after it, and 
sat down and hummed a tune, and hummed it out of tune, 
and quarrelled with it. 

And John Rokesmith, what did he ? 

He went down to his room, and buried John Harmon 
many additional fathoms deep. He took his hat, and walked 
out, and, as he went to Holloway or anywhere else — not at 
all minding where — heaped mounds upon mounds of earth 
over John Harmon’s grave. His walking did not bring him 
home until the dawn of day. And so busy had he been 
all night, piling and piling weights upon weights of earth 
above John Harmon’s grave, that by that time John Har- 
mon lay buried under a whole Alpine range; and still the 
Sexton Rokesmith accumulated mountains over him, lighten- 
ing his labour with the dirge, Cover him, crush him, keep 
him down I” 


CHAPTER XIV 


STRONG OF PURPOSE 

The sexton-task of piling earth above John Harmon all 
night long was not conducive to sound sleep; but Rokesmith 
had some broken morning rest, and rose strengthened in his 
purpose. It was all over now. No ghost should trouble 
Mr. and Mrs. Boffin’s peace; invisible and voiceless, the ghost 
should look on for a little while longer at the state of exist- 
ence out of which it had departed, and then should for ever 
cease to haunt the scenes in which it had no place. 

He went over it all again. He had lapsed into the con- 
dition in which he found himself, as many a man lapses into 
many a condition, without perceiving the accumulative power 
of its separate circumstances. When in the distrust engen- 
dered by his wretched childhood and the action for evil — 
never yet for good within his knowledge then — of his father 
and his father’s wealth on all within their influence, he 
conceived the idea of his first deception, it was meant to be 
harmless, it was to last but a few hours or days, it w^as to 
involve in it only the girl so capriciously forced upon him, 
and upon whom he was so capriciously forced, and it was 
honestly meant well towards her. For if he had found her 
unhappy in the prospect of that marriage (through her heart 
inclining to another man or for any other cause), he would 
seriously have said: “This is another of the old perverted 
uses of the misery-making money. I will let it go to my 
and my sister’s only protectors and friends.” When the 
snare into which he fell so outstripped his first intention as 
that he found himself placarded by the police authorities 
upon the London walls for dead, he confusedly accepted the 
aid that fell upon him, without considering how firmly it 
must seem to fix the Boffins in their accession to the fortune. 


STRONG OF PURPOSE 


427 


When he saw them and knew them, and even from his 
vantage-ground of inspection could find no flaw in them, he 
asked himself, “And shall I come to life to dispossess such 
people as these ? ” There was no good to set against the 
putting of them to that hard proof. He had heard from 
Bella’s own lips when he stood tapping at the door on that 
night of his taking the lodgings, that the marriage would 
have been on her part thoroughly mercenary. He had since 
tried her, in his own unknown person and supposed station, 
and she not only rejected his advances but resented them. 
Was it for him to have the shame of buying her, or the mean- 
ness of punishing her? Yet, by coming to life and accepting 
the condition of the inheritance, he must do the former; 
and by coming to life and rejecting it, he must do the 
latter. 

Another consequence that he had never foreshadowed, was 
the implication of an innocent man in his supposed murder. 
He would obtain complete retractation from the accuser, and 
set the wrong right; but clearly the wrong could never have 
been done if he had never planned a deception. Then, what- 
ever inconvenience or distress of mind the deception cost 
him, it was manful repentantly to accept as among its con- 
sequences, and make no complaint. 

Thus John Rokesmith in the morning, and it buried John 
Harmon still many fathoms deeper than he had been buried 
in the night. 

Going out earlier than he was accustomed to do, he en- 
countered the cherub at the door. The cherub’s way was 
for a certain space his way, and they walked together. 

It was impossible not to notice the change in the cherub’s 
appearance. The cherub felt very conscious of it, and 
modestly remarked: “A present from my daughter Bella, 
Mr. Rokesmith.” 

The words gave the Secretary a stroke of pleasure, for he 
remembered the fifty pounds, and he still loved the girl. 
No doubt it was very weak — it always is very weak, some 
authorities hold — but he loved the girl. 

“ I don’t know whether you happen to have read many 
books of African Travel, Mr Rokesmith? ” said R. W. 

“ I have read several.” 


428 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Well, you know, there^s usually a King George, or a 
King Boy, or a King Sambo, or a King Bill, or Bull, or 
Rum, or Junk, or whatever name the sailors may have 
happened to give him.” 

“ Where? ” asked Rokesmith. 

“ Anywhere. Anywhere in Africa, I mean. Pretty well 
everywhere, I may say ; for black kings are cheap — and 1 
think ” — said R. W., with an apologetic air, “ nasty.” 

“ I am much of your opinion, Mr. Wilfer. You were 
going to say ? ” 

I was going to say, the king is generally dressed in a 
London hat only, or a Manchester pair of braces, or one 
epaulette, or a uniform coat, with his legs in the sleeves, or 
something of that kind.” 

“ Just so,” said the Secretary. 

In confidence, I assure you, Mr. Rokesmith,” observed 
the cheerful cherub, that when more of my family were 
at home and to be provided for, I used to remind myself 
immensely of that king. You have no idea, as a single man, 
of the difficulty I have had in wearing more than one good 
article at a time.” 

“ I can easily believe it, Mr. Wilfer.” 

“ I only mention it,” said R. W. in the warmth of his 
heart, “ as a proof of the amiable, delicate, and considerate 
affection of my daughter Bella. If she had been a little 
spoilt, I couldn’t have thought so very much of it, under the 
circumstances. But no, not a bit. And she is so very pretty! 
I hope you agree with me in finding her very pretty, Mr. 
Rokesmith ? ” 

“ Certainly I do. Every one must.” 

I hope so,” said the cherub. “ Indeed, I have no doubt 
of it. This is a great advancement for her in life, Mr. Roke- 
smith. A great opening of her prospects! ” 

‘‘ Miss Wilfer could have no better friends than Mr. and 
Mrs. Boffin.” 

Impossible! ” said the gratified cherub. “ Really I begin 
to think things are very well as they are. If Mr. John Har- 
mon had lived ” 

He is better dead,” said the Secretary. 

“ No, I won’t go so far as to say that,” urged the cherub, 


STRONG OF PURPOSE 


429 


a little remonstrant against the very decisive and unpitying 
tone; “ but he mightn’t have suited Bella, or Bella mightn’t 
have suited him, or fifty things, whereas now I hope she can 
choose for herself.” 

“ Has she — as you place the confidence in me of speaking 
on the subject, you will excuse my asking — has she — per- 
haps — chosen ? ” faltered the Secretary. 

“ Oh dear no! ” returned R. W. 

“ Young ladies sometimes,” Rokesmith hinted, “ choose 
without mentioning their choice to their fathers.” 

“ Not in this case, Mr. Rokesmith. Between my daughter 
Bella and me there is a regular league and covenant of con- 
fidence. It was ratified only the other day. The ratification 
dates from — these,” said the cherub, giving a little pull at 
the lapels of his coat and the pockets of his trousers. “ Oh 
no, she has not chosen. To be sure, young George Sampson, 
in the days when Mr. John Harmon ” 

“Who I wish had never been born!” said the Secretary, 
with a gloomy brow. 

R. W. looked at him with surprise, as thinking he had 
contracted an unaccountable spite against the poor deceased, 
and continued, “ In the days when Mr. John Harmon was 
being sought out, young George Sampson certainly was 
hovering about Bella, and Bella let him hover. But it never 
was seriously thought of, and it’s still less than ever to be 
thought of now. For Bella is ambitious, Mr. Rokesmith, 
and I think I may predict will marry fortune. This time, 
you see, she will have the person and the property before her 
together, and will be able to make her choice with her eyes 
open. This is my road. I am very sorry to part company 
so soon. Good morning, sir! ” 

The Secretary pursued his way, not very much elevated in 
spirits by this conversation, and, arriving at the Boffin 
mansion, found Betty Higden waiting for him. 

“ I should thank you kindly, sir,” said Betty, “ if I might 
make so bold as have a word or two wi’ you.” 

She should have as many words as she liked, he told her; 
and took her into his room, and made her sit down. 

“ ’Tis concerning Sloppy, sir,” said Betty. “ And that’s 
how I come here by myself. Not wishing him to know what 


430 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Tm a-going to say to you, I got the start of him early and 
walked up.” 

“ You have wonderful energy,” returned Rokesmith. “ You 
are as young as I am.” 

Betty Higden gravely shook her head. “ I am strong for 
my time of life, sir, but not young, thank the Lord! ” 

‘‘ Are you thankful for not being young ? ” 

“ Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone 
through again, and the end would be a weary way off, don’t 
you see? But never mind me; ’tis concerning Sloppy.” 

“And what about him, Betty?” 

“ ’Tis just this, sir. It can’t be reasoned out of his head 
by any powers of mine but what that he can do right by 
your kind lady and gentleman and do his work for me, both 
together. Now he can’t. To give himself up to being put 
in the way of arning a good living and getting on, he must 
give me up. Well; he won’t.” 

“ I respect him for it,” said Rokesmith. 

“ Do ye, sir? I don’t know but what I do myself. Still 
that don’t make it right to let him have his way. So as he 
won’t give me up. I’m a-going to give him up.” 

“How, Betty?” 

“ I’m a-going to run away from him.” 

With an astonished look at the indomitable old face and the 
bright eyes, the Secretary repeated, “ Run away from him ? ” 

“ Yes, sir,” said Betty, with one nod. And in the nod and 
in the firm set of her mouth, there was a vigour of purpose 
not to be doubted. 

“ Come, come,” said the Secretary. “ We must talk about 
this. Let us take our time over it, and try to get at the 
true sense of the case and the true course, by degrees.” 

“ Now lookee here, my dear,” returned old Betty — “ ask- 
ing your excuse for being so familiar, but being of a time of life 
a’ most to be your grandmother twice over. Now lookee here 
’Tis a poor living and a hard as is to be got out of this work 
that I am a doing now, and but for Sloppy I don’t know as 1 
should have held to it this long. But it did just keep us on, 
the two together. Now that I’m alone — with even Johnny 
gone — I’d far sooner be upon my feet and tiring of myself 
out, than a-sitting folding and folding by the fire. And I’ll 


STRONG OF PURPOSE 


431 


tell you why. There’s a deadness steals over me at times, 
that the kind of life favours and I don’t like. Now, I seem 
to have Johnny in my arms — now, his mother — now, his 
mother’s mother — now, I seem to be a child myself, a- lying 
once again in the arms of my own mother — then I get 
numbed, thought and senses, till I start out of my seat, 
afeerd that I’m a growing like the poor old people that they 
brick up in the Unions, as you may sometimes see when they 
let ’em out of the four walls to have a warm in the sun, 
crawling quite scared about the streets. I was a nimble girl, 
and have always been a active body, as I told your lady, first 
time ever I see her good face. I can still walk twenty mile 
if I am put to it. I’d far better be a-walking than a-getting 
numbed and dreary. I’m a good fair knitter, and can make 
many little things to sell. The loan from your lady and 
gentleman of twenty shillings to fit out a basket with would 
be a fortune for me. Trudging round the country and tiring 
of myself out, I shall keep the deadness off, and get my own 
bread by my own labour. And what more can I want? ” 

“ And this is your plan,” said the Secretary, ‘‘ for running 
away?” 

“ Show me a better! My deary, show me a better! Why, 
I know very well,” said old Betty Higden, and you know 
very well, that your lady and gentleman would set me up 
like a queen for the rest of my life, if so be that we could 
make it right among us to have it so. But we can’t make it 
right among us to have it so. I’ve never took charity yet, 
nor yet has any one belonging to me. And it would be 
forsaking of myself indeed, and forsaking of my children dead 
and gone, and forsaking of their children dead and gone, to 
set up a contradiction now at last.” 

“ It might come to be justifiable and unavoidable at last,” 
the Secretary gently hinted, with a slight stress on the word. 

“ I hope it never will! It ain’t that I mean to give offence 
by being anyways proud,” said the old creature simply, “ but 
that I want to be of a piece like, and helpful of myself right 
through to my death.” 

‘‘ And to be sure,” added the Secretary, as a comfort for 
her, “ Sloppy will be eagerly looking forward to his oppor- 
tunity of being to you what you have been to him.” 


432 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Trust him for that, sir! ” said Betty, cheerfully. 

Though he had need to be something quick about it, for 
Fm a getting to be an old one. But Fm a strong one too, 
and travel and weather never hurt me yet! Now, be so kind 
as speak for me to your lady and gentleman, and tell ’em 
what I ask of their good friendliness to let me do, and why 
I ask it.” 

The Secretary felt that there was no gainsaying what was 
urged by this brave old heroine, and he presently repaired to 
Mrs. Boffin and recommended her to let Betty Higden have 
her way, at all events for the time. “It would be far more 
satisfactory to your kind heart, I know,” he said, “ to provide 
for her, but it may be a duty to respect this independent 
spirit.” Mrs. Boffin was not proof against the consideration 
set before her. She and her husband had worked too, and 
had brought their simple faith and honour clean out of dust- 
heaps. If they owed a duty to Betty Higden, of a surety 
that duty must be done. 

“ But, Betty,” said Mrs. Boffin, when she accompanied 
John Rokesmith back to his room, and shone upon her with 
the light of her radiant face, “ granted all else, I think I 
wouldn’t run away.” 

“ ’Twould come easier to Sloppy,” said Mrs. Higden, 
shaking her head. “ ’Twould come easier to me too. But 
’tis as you please.” 

“ When would you go ? ” 

“ Now,” was the bright and ready answer. “ To-day, my 
deary, to-morrow. Bless ye, I am used to it. I know many 
parts of the country well. When nothing else was to be 
done, I have worked in many a market-garden afore now, 
and in many a hop-garden too.” 

“If I give my consent to your going, Betty — which Mr. 
Rokesmith thinks I ought to do ” 

Betty thanked him with a grateful curtsey. 

“ — We must not lose sight of you. We must not let you 
pass out of our knowledge. We must know all about you.” 

“ Yes, my deary, but not through letter-writing, because 
letter- writing — indeed, writing of most sorts — hadn’t much 
come up for such as me when I was young. But I shall be 
to and fro. No fear of my missing a chance of giving myself 


STRONG OF PURPOSE 


433 


a sight of your reviving face. Besides,” said Betty, with 
logical good faith, “ I shall have a debt to pay off, by littles, 
and naturally that would bring me back, if nothing else 
would.” 

“ Must it be done?” asked Mrs. Boffin, still reluctant, of 
the Secretary. 

“ I think it must.” 

After more discussion it was agreed that it should be 
done, and Mrs. Boffin summoned Bella to note down the 
little purchases that were necessary to set Betty up in trade. 
“ Don’t ye be timorous for me, my dear,” said the staunch 
old heart, observant of Bella’s face: “ when 1 take my seat 
with my work, clean and busy and fresh, in a country market- 
place, I shall turn a sixpence as sure as ever a farmer’s wife 
there.” 

The Secretary took that opportunity of touching on the 
practical question of Mr. Sloppy’s capabilities. He would 
have made a wonderful cabinet-maker,” said Mrs. Higden, 
“ if there had been the money to put him to it.” She had seen 
him handle tools that he had borrowed to mend the mangle, 
or to knock a broken piece of furniture together, in a sur- 
prising manner. As to constructing toys for the Minders, 
out of nothing, he had done that daily. And once as many 
as a dozen people had got together in the lane to see the 
neatness with which he fitted the broken pieces of a foreign 
monkey’s musical instrument. “ That’s well,” said the Secre- 
tary. “ It will not be hard to find a trade for him.” 

John Harmon being buried under mountains now, the 
Secretary that very same day set himself to finish his affairs 
and have done with him. He drew up an ample declaration, 
to be signed by Rogue Riderhood (knowing he could get his 
signature to it, by making him another and much shorter 
evening call), and then considered to whom should he give 
the document? To Hexam’s son, or daughter? Resolved 
speedily, to the daughter. But it would be safer to avoid 
seeing the daughter, because the son had seen Julius Hand- 
ford, and — he could not be too careful — there might 
possibly be some comparison of notes between son and daugh- 
ter, which would awaken slumbering suspicion, and lead to 
consequences. I might even,” he reflected, “ be appre- 


434 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


hended as having been concerned in my own murder!” There- 
fore, best to send it to the daughter under cover by the post. 
Pleasant Riderhood had undertaken to find out where she 
lived, and it was not necessary that it should be attended by 
a single word of explanation. So far, straight. 

But all that he knew of the daughter he derived from 
Mrs. Boffin’s accounts of what she heard from Mr. Light- 
wood, who seemed to have a reputation for his manner of 
relating a story, and to have made 'his story quite his own. 
It interested him, and he would like to have the means of 
knowing more — as, for instance, that she received the exone- 
rating paper, and that it satisfied her — by opening some 
channel altogether independent of Lightwood: who likewise 
had seen Julius Handford, who had publicly advertised for 
Julius Handford, and whom of all men he, the Secretary, 
most avoided. “ But with 'whom the common course of things 
might bring me in a moment face to face, any day in the 
week, or any hour in the day.” 

Now to cast about for some likely means of opening such 
a channel. The boy. Hex am, was training for and with a 
schoolmaster. The Secretary knew it, because this sister’s 
share in that disposal of him seemed to be the best part 
of Lightwood’ s account of the family. This young fellow. 
Sloppy, stood in need of some instruction. If he, the Secre- 
tary, engaged that schoolmaster to impart it to him, the 
channel might be opened. The next point was, did Mrs. 
Boffin know the schoolmaster’s name? No, but she knew 
where the school was. Quite enough. Promptly the Secretary 
wrote to the master of that school, and that very evening 
Bradley Headstone answered in person. 

The Secretary stated to the schoolmaster how the object 
w^as to send to him, for certain occasional evening instruction, 
a youth whom Mr. and Mrs. Boffin wished to help to an 
industrious and useful place in life. The schoolmaster was 
willing to undertake the charge of such a pupil. The Secre- 
tary inquired on wLat terms? The schoolmaster stated on 
what terms. Agreed and disposed of. 

“ May I ask, sir,” said Bradley Headstone, “ to whose good 
opinion I ow^e a recommendation to you ? ” 

“You should know that I am not the principal here. I 


STRONG OP PURPOSE 


435 


am Mr. Boffin’s Secretary. Mr. Boffin is a gentleman who 
inherited a property of wdnch you may have heard some 
public mention; the Harmon property.” 

“ Mr. Harmon,” said Bradley: who would have been a 
great deal more at a loss than he w^as, if he had known to 
whom he spoke: “ w^as murdered, and found in the river.” 

“ Was murdered and found in the river.” 

“ It was not ” 

‘‘ No,” interposed the Secretary, smiling, “ it was not he 
who recommended you. Mr. Boffin heard of you through a 
certain Mr. Lightwood. I think you know Mr. Lightwoodj 
or know of him ? ” 

“ I know as much of him as I wish to know, sir. I have 
no acquaintance with Mr. Lightwood, and I desire none. I 
have no objection to Mr. Lightwood, but I have a particular 
objection to some of Mr. Lightwood’s friends — in short, to 
one of Mr. Lightwood’s friends. His great friend.” 

He could hardly get the words out, even then and there, so 
fierce did he grow (though keeping himself down with infinite 
pains of repression), when the careless and contemptuous 
bearing of Eugene Wrayburn rose before his mind. 

The Secretary saw there was a strong feeling here on some 
sore point, and he would have made a diversion from it, but 
for Bradley’s holding to it in his cumbersome way. 

“ I have no objection to mention the friend by name,” he 
said, doggedly. “ The person I object to is Mr. Eugene 
Wrayburn.” 

The Secretary remembered him. In his disturbed recol- 
lection of that night when he was striving against the drugged 
drink, there was but a dim image of Eugene’s person; but 
he remembered his name, and his manner of speaking, and 
how he had gone with them to view the body, and where he 
had stood, and what he had said. 

“ Pray, Mr. Headstone, what is the name,” he asked, again 
trying to make a diversion, “ of young Hexam’s sister? ” 

“ Her name is Lizzie,” said the schoolmaster, with a strong 
contraction of his whole face. 

‘‘She is a young woman of a remarkable character; is 
she not? ” 

“She is sufficiently remarkable to be very superior to 


436 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Mr. Eugene Wrajburn — though an ordinary person might be 
that,” said the schoolmaster^ “ and I hope you will not think 
it impertinent in me, sir, to ask why you put the two names 
together ? ” 

“ By mere accident,” returned the Secretary. ‘‘ Observing 
that Mr, Wray burn was a disagreeable subject with you, I 
tried to get away from it; though not very successfully, it 
would appear.” 

“ Do you know Mr. Wrayburn, sir?” 

“ No.” 

“ Then perhaps the names cannot be put together on the 
authority of any representation of his ? ” 

“ Certainly not.” 

“ I took the liberty to ask,” said Bradley, after casting his 
eyes on the ground, “ because he is capable of making any 
representation, in the swaggering levity of his insolence. I — 
I hope you will not misunderstand me, sir. I — I am much 
interested in this brother and sister, and the subject awakens 
very strong feelings within me. Very, very strong feelings.” 
With a shaking hand, Bradley took out his handkerchief and 
wiped his brow. 

The Secretary thought, as he glanced at the schoolmaster’s 
face, that he had opened a channel here indeed, and that it 
was an unexpectedly dark and deep and stormy one, and 
difficult to sound. All at once, in the midst of his turbulent 
emotions, Bradley stopped and seemed to challenge his look. 
Much as though he suddenly asked him, “ What do you see 
in me ? ” 

“ The brother, young Hexam, was your real recommenda- 
tion here,” said the Secretary, quietly going back to the 
point; “ Mr. and Mrs. Boffin happening to know, through 
Mr. Lightwood, that he was your pupil. Anything that I ask 
respecting the brother and sister, or either of them, I ask for 
myself, out of my own interest in the subject, and not in 
my official character, or on Mr. Boffin’s behalf. How I come 
to be interested, I need not explain. You know the father’s 
connection with the discovery of Mr. Harmon’s body ? ” 

“ Sir,” replied Bradley, very restlessly indeed, “ I know all 
the circumstances of that case.” 

“ Pray tell me, Mr. Headstone,” said the Secretary. “ Does 


STRONG OF PURPOSE 


437 


the sister suffer under any stigma because of the impossible 
accusation — groundless would be a better word — that was 
made against the father, and substantially withdrawn ? '' 

“ No, sir,” returned Bradley, with a kind of anger. 

“lam very glad to hear it.” 

“ The sister,” said Bradley, separating his words over-care- 
fully, and speaking as if he were repeating them from a book, 
“ suffers under no reproach that repels a man of unimpeach- 
able character, who has made for himself every step of his 
way in life, from placing her in his own station. I will not 
say raising her to his own station; I say, placing her in it. 
The sister labours under no reproach, unless she should un- 
fortunately make it for herself. When such a man is not 
deterred from regarding her as his equal, and when he has 
convinced himself that there is no blemish on her, I think 
the fact must be taken to be pretty expressive.” 

“ And there is such a man? ” said the Secretary. 

Bradley Headstone knotted his brows, and squared his 
large lower jaw, and fixed his eyes on the ground with an 
air of determination that seemed unnecessary to the occasion, 
as he replied: “ And there is such a man.” 

The Secretary had no reason or excuse for prolonging the 
conversation, and it ended here. Within three hours the 
oakum-headed apparition once more dived into the Leaving 
Shop, and that night Rogue Riderhood’s recantation lay in 
the post office, addressed under cover to Lizzie Hexam at her 
right address. 

All these proceedings occupied John Rokesmith so much, 
that it was not until the following day that he saw Bella 
again. It seemed then to be tacitly understood between* 
them that they were to be as distantly easy as they could, 
without attracting the attention of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin to 
any marked change in their manner. The fitting out of old 
Betty Higden was favourable to this, as keeping Bella en- 
gaged and interested, and as occupying the general atten- 
tion. 

“ 1 think,” said Rokesmith, when they all stood about her 
while she packed her tidy basket — except Bella, who was 
busily helping on her knees at the chair on which it stood; 
“ that at least you might keep a letter in your pocket, Mrs. 


438 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Higden, which I would write for you and date from here, 
merely stating, in the names of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, that 
they are your friends: — I won’t say patrons, because they 
wouldn’t like it.” 

No, no, no,” said Mr. Boffin; “no patronising! Let’s 
keep out of that, whatever we come to.” 

“ There’s more than enough of that about, without us; 
ain’t there. Noddy?” said Mrs. Boffin. 

“ I believe you, old lady! ” returned the Golden Dustman. 
“ Overmuch, indeed! ” 

“ But people sometimes like to be patronised; don’t they, 
sir?” asked Bella, looking up. 

“ I don’t. And if they do, my dear, they ought to learn 
better,” said Mr. Boffin. “ Patrons and Patronesses, and 
Vice-Patrons and Vice-Patronesses, and Deceased Patrons 
and Deceased Patronesses, and Ex- Vice-Patrons and Ex- 
Vice-Patronesses, what does it all mean in the books of the 
Charities that come pouring in on Rokesmith as he sits among 
’em pretty well up to his neck! If Mr. Tom Noakes gives 
his five shillings, ain’t he a Patron, and if Mrs. Jack Styles 
gives her five shillings, ain’t she a Patroness? What the 
deuce is it all about? If it ain’t stark staring impudence, 
what do you call it ? ” 

“ Don’t be warm. Noddy,” Mrs. Boffin urged. 

“Warm!” cried Mr. Boffin. “It’s enough to make a 
man smoking hot. I can’t go anywhere without being 
Patronised. I don’t want to be Patronised. If I buy a 
ticket for a Flower Show, or a Music Show, or any sort 
of Show, and pay pretty heavy for it, why am I to be Pa- 
troned and Patronessed as if the Patrons and Patronesses 
treated me? If there’s a good thing to be done, can’t it be 
done on its own merits? If there’s a bad thing to be done, 
can it ever be Patroned and Patronessed right? Yet when 
a new Institution’s going to be built, it seems to me that 
the bricks and mortar ain’t made of half so much conse- 
quence as the Patrons and Patronesses; no, nor yet the 
objects. I wish somebody would tell me whether other 
countries get Patronised to anything like the extent of this 
one! And as to the Patrons and Patronesses themselves, 
I wonder they’re not ashamed of themselves. They ain’t 


STRONG OF PURPOSE 439 

Pills, or Hair- Washes, or Invigorating Nervous Essences, 
to be puffed in that way!” 

Having delivered himself of these remarks, Mr. Boffin took 
a trot, according to his usual custom, and trotted back to 
ffie spot from which he had started. 

“As to the letter, Rokesmith,” said Mr. Boffin, “you’re 
as right as a trivet. Give her the letter, make her take the 
letter, put it in her pocket by violence. She might fall sick. 

— You know you might fall sick,” said Mr. Boffin. “ Don’t 
deny it, Mrs. Higden, in your obstinacy; you know you 
might.” 

Old Betty laughed, and said that she would take the letter 
and be thankful. 

“ That’s right! ” said Mr. Boffin. “ Come! That’s sen- 
sible. And don’t be thankful to us (for we never thought of 
it), but to Mr. Rokesmith.” 

The letter was written, and read to her, and given to her. 

“ Now, how do you feel ? ” said Mr. Boffin. “ Do you 
like it?” 

“The letter, sir?” said Betty. “Ay, it’s a beautiful 
letter! ” 

“ No, no, no; not the letter,” said Mr. Boffin. “ The idea. 
Are you sure you’re strong enough to carry out the idea? ” 

“ I shall be stronger, and keep the deadness off better this 
way, than any way left open to me, sir.” 

“ Don’t say than any way left open, you know,” urged Mr. 
Boffin; “because there are ways without end. A house- 
keeper would be acceptable over yonder at the Bower, for 
instance. Wouldn’t you like to see the Bower, and know 
a retired literary man of the name of Wegg that lives there 

— with a wooden leg ? ” 

Old Betty was proof even against this temptation, and fell 
to adjusting her black bonnet and shawl. 

“ I wouldn’t let you go, now it comes to this, after all,” 
said Mr. Boffin, “ if I didn’t hope that it may make a man 
and a workman of Sloppy, in as short a time as ever a man 
and a workman was made yet. Why, what have you got 
there, Betty ? Not a doll ? ” 

It was the man in the Guards who had been on duty over 
Johnny’s bed. The solitary old woman showed what it was, 


440 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


and put it up quietly in her dress. Then she gratefully 
took leave of Mrs. Boffin, and of Mr. Boffin, and of Roke- 
smith, and then put her old withered arms round Bella’s 
young and blooming neck, and said, repeating Johnny’s 
words: A kiss for the boofer lady.” 

The Secretary looked on from a doorway at the boofer lady 
thus encircled, and still looked on at the boofer lady standing 
alone there, when the determined old figure with its steady 
bright eyes was trudging through the streets away from 
paralysis and pauperism. 









CHAPTER XV 


THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR 

Bradley Headstone held fast by that other interview he 
was to have with Lizzie Hexam. In stipulating for it, he 
had been impelled by a feeling little short of desperation, 
and the feeling abided by him. It was very soon after his 
interview with the Secretary, that he and Charley Hexam 
set out one leaden evening, not unnoticed by Miss Peecher, 
to have this desperate interview accomplished. 

“ That dolls^ dressmaker,” said Bradley, ‘‘ is favourable 
neither to me nor to you, Hexam.” 

A pert crooked little chit, Mr. Headstone! I knew she 
would put herself in the way, if she could, and would be 
sure to strike in with something impertinent. It was on 
that account that I proposed our going to the City to-night 
and meeting my sister.” 

“ So I supposed,” said Bradley, getting his gloves on his 
nervous hands as he w^alked. “ So I supposed.” 

“ Nobody but my sister,” pursued Charley, “ would have 
found out such an extraordinary companion. She has done 
it in a ridiculous fancy of giving herself up to another. She 
told me so, that night when we went there.” 

Why should she give herself up to the dressmaker?” 
asked Bradley. 

“ Oh!” said the boy, colouring. One of her romantic 
ideas! I tried to convince her so, but I didn’t succeed. How- 
ever, what we have got to do is, to succeed to-night, Mr. 
Pleadstone, and then all the rest follows.” 

“ You are still sanguine, Hexam.” 

Certainly I am, sir. Why, we have everything on our 
side.” 

“ Except your sister, perhaps,” thought Bradley. But he 
only gloomily thought it, and said nothing. 


444 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Why, how do you know what it is? ” returned the boy. 

‘‘ Perhaps I don’t, but ” 

“ Perhaps you don’t? No, Liz, I should think not. If you 
knew what it was, you would give me a very different answer. 
There; let go; be sensible. I wonder you don’t remember that 
Mr. Headstone is looking on.” 

She allowed him to separate himself from her, and he, 
after saying, ‘‘ Now, Liz, be a rational girl and a good sister,” 
walked away. She remained standing alone with Bradley 
Headstone, and it was not until she raised her eyes that he 
spoke. 

“ I said,” he began, “ when I saw you last, that there was 
something unexplained, which might perhaps influence you. 
I have come this evening to explain it. I hope you will not 
judge of me by my hesitating manner when I speak to you. 
You see me at my greatest disadvantage. It is most unfor- 
tunate for me that I wish you to see me at my best, and that I 
know you see me at my worst.” 

She moved slowly on when he paused, and he moved 
slowly on beside her. 

“ It seems egotistical to begin by saying so much about 
myself,” he resumed, “ but whatever I say to you seems, even 
in my own ears, below what I want to say, and different 
from what I want to say. I can’t help it. So it is. You 
Jire the ruin of me.” 

She started at the passionate sound of the last words, and 
at the passionate action of his hands with which they were 
accompanied. 

“ Yes! you are the ruin — the ruin — the ruin — of me. I 
have no resources in myself, I have no confidence in myself, 

I have no government of myself when you are near me or 
in my thoughts. And you are always in my thoughts now. 

I have never been quit of you since I first saw you. Oh, 
that was a wretched day for me! That was a wretched, 
miserable day! ” 

A touch of pity for him mingled with her dislike of him, 
and she said: “ Mr. Headstone, I am grieved to have done 
you any harm, but I have never meant it.” 

” There! ” he cried, despairingly. “ Now I seem to have 
reproached you, instead of revealing to you the state of my 


THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR 


445 


own mind! Bear with me. I am always wrong when you 
are in question. It is my doom.” 

Struggling with himself, and by times looking up at the 
deserted windows of the houses as if there could be anything 
written in their grimy panes that would help him, he paced 
the whole pavement at her side, before he spoke again. 

“ I must try to give expression to what is in my mind; 
it shall and must be spoken. Though you see me so con- 
founded — though you strike me so helpless — I ask you to 
believe that there are many people who think well of me; 
that there are some people who highly esteem me ; that I have 
in my way won a station which is considered worth winning.” 

“ Surely, Mr. Headstone, I do believe it. Surely I have 
always known it from Charley.” 

“ I ask you to believe that if I were to offer my home 
such as it is, my station such as it is, my affections such as 
they are, to any one of the best considered, and best qualified, 
and most distinguished, among the young women engaged 
in my calling, they would probably be accepted. Even 
readily accepted.” 

“ I do not doubt it,” said Lizzie, with her eyes upon the 
ground. 

“ I have sometimes had it in my thoughts to make that 
offer and to settle down as many men of my class do: I on 
the one side of a school, my wife on the other, both of us 
interested in the same work.” 

“Why have you not done so?” asked Lizzie Hexam. 
“ Why do you not do so? ” 

“Far better that I never did! The only one grain of 
comfort I have had these many weeks,” he said, always 
speaking passionately, and, when most emphatic, repeating 
that former action of his hands, which was like flinging his 
heart’s blood down before her in drops upon the pavement 
stones; “ the only one grain of comfort I have had these 
many weeks is, that I never did. For if I had, and if the 
same spell had come upon me for my ruin, I know I should 
have broken that tie asunder as if it had been thread.” 

She glanced at him with a glance of fear, and a shrinking 
gesture. He answered, as if she had spoken: 

“ No! It w’ould not have been voluntary on my part, 


446 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


any more than it is voluntary in me to be here now. You 
draw me to you. If I were shut up in a strong prison, you 
would draw me out. I should break through the wall to 
come to you. If I were lying on a sick bed, you would 
draw me up — to stagger to your feet and fall there.” 

The wild energy of the man, now quite let loose, was ab- 
solutely terrible. He stopped and laid his hand upon a piece 
of the coping of the burial-ground enclosure, as if he would 
have dislodged the stone. 

“No man knows till the time comes what depths are 
within him. To some men it never comes; let them rest and 
be thankful! To me, you brought it; on me, you forced it; 
and the bottom of this raging sea,” striking himself upon 
the breast, “ has been heaved up ever since.” 

“ Mr. Headstone, I have heard enough. Let me stop you 
here. It will be better for you and better for me. Let us 
find my brother.” 

“Not yet. It shall and must be spoken. I have been in 
torments ever since I stopped short of it before. You are 
alarmed. It is another of my miseries that I cannot speak 
to you or speak of you without stumbling at every syllable, 
unless I let the check go altogether and run mad. Here is 
a man lighting the lamps. He will be gone directly. I 
entreat of you let us walk round this place again. You have 
no reason to look alarmed; I can restrain myself, and I 
will.” 

She yielded to the entreaty — how could she do otherwise ? 
— and they paced the stones in silence. One by one the lights 
leaped up, making the cold gray church tower more remote, 
and they were alone again. He said no more until they had 
regained the spot where he had broken off; there, he again 
stood still, and again grasped the stone. In saying what he 
* said then, he never looked at her; but looked at it and 
wrenched at it. 

“ You know what I am going to say. I love you. What 
other men may mean when they use that expression, I can- 
not tell; what I mean is, that I am under the influence of 
some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, 
and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you 
could draw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows. 


THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR 


447 


you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to 
anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any 
exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of my 
thoughts, so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by 
your being the ruin of me. But if you would return a 
favourable answer to my offer of myself in marriage, you 
could draw me to any good — every good — with equal force. 
My circumstances are quite easy, and you would want for 
nothing. My reputation stands quite high, and would be a 
shield for yours. If you saw me at my work, able to do it 
well and respected in it, you might even come to take a 
sort of pride in me; — I would try hard that you should. 
Whatever considerations I may have thought of against this 
offer, I have conquered, and I make it with all my heart. 
Your brother favours me to the utmost, and it is likely that 
we might live and work together; anyhow, it is certain that 
he would have my best influence and support. I don’t 
know that I could say more if I tried. I might only weaken 
what is ill enough said as it is. I only add that if it is anv 
claim on you to be in earnest, I am in thorough earnest, 
dreadful earnest.” 

The powdered mortar from under the stone at which he 
wrenched, rattled on the pavement to confirm his words. 

“ Mr. Headstone ” 

“Stop! I implore you, before you answer me, to walk 
round this place once more. It will give you a minute’s time 
to think, and me a minute’s time to get some fortitude to- 
gether.” 

Again she yielded to the entreaty, and again they came 
back to the same place, and again he worked at the stone. 

“ Is it,” he said, with his attention apparently engrossed 
by it, “ yes, or no? ” 

“ Mr. Headstone, I thank you sincerely, I thank you 
gratefully, and hope you may find a worthy wife before long 
and be very happy. But it is no.” 

“Is no short time necessary for reflection; no weeks or 
days ? ” he asked, in the same half-suffocated way. 

“ None whatever.” 

“ Are you quite decided, and is there no chance of any 
change in my favour ? ” 


448 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I am quite decided, Mr. Headstone, and I am bound to 
answer I am certain there is none.” 

“ Then,” said he, suddenly changing his tone and turning 
to her, and bringing his clenched hand down upon the stone 
with a force that laid the knuckles raw and bleeding; “ then 
I hope that I may never kill him ! ” 

The dark look of hatred and revenge with which the 
words broke from his livid lips, and with which he stood 
holding out his smeared hand as if it held some weapon and 
had just struck a mortal blow, made her so afraid of him 
that she turned to run away. But he caught her by the arm. 

“ Mr. Headstone, let me go. Mr. Headstone, I must call 
for help!” 

“ It is I who should call for help,” he said; “you don’t 
know yet how much I need it.” 

The working of his face as she shrank from it, glancing 
round for her brother, and uncertain what to do, might have 
extorted a cry from her in another instant; but all at once 
he sternly stopped it and fixed it, as if Death itself had 
done so. 

“ There! You see I have recovered myself. Hear me out.” 

With much of the dignity of courage, as she recalled her 
self-reliant life and her right to be free from accountability 
to this man, she released her arm from his grasp and stood 
looking full at him. She had never been so handsome in his 
eyes. A shade came over them while he looked back at her, 
as if she drew the very light out of them to herself. 

“ This time, at least, I will leave nothing unsaid,” he went 
on, folding his hands before him, clearly to prevent his 
being betrayed into any impetuous gesture; “this last time 
at least I will not be tortured with after-thoughts of a lost 
opportunity. Mr. Eugene Wrayburn.” 

“ Was it of him you spoke in your ungovernable rage and 
violence ? ” Lizzie Hexam demanded with spirit. 

He bit his lip, and looked at her, and said never a word. 

“Was it Mr. Wrayburn that you threatened ? ” 

He bit his lip again, and looked at her, and said never a 
word. 

“You asked me to hear you out, and you will not speak, 
Let me find my brother.” 


THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR 


449 


‘‘Stay! I threatened no one.” 

Her look dropped for an instant to his bleeding hand. 
He lifted it to his mouth, wiped it on his sleeve, and again 
folded it over the other. “ Mr. Eugene Wray burn,” he 
repeated. 

“ Why do you mention that name again and again, Mr. 
Headstone ? ” 

“ Because it is the text of the little I have left to say. 
Observe! There are no threats in it. If I utter a threat, 
stop me, and fasten it upon me. Mr. Eugene Wrayburn.” 

A worse threat than was conveyed in his manner of utter- 
ing the name, could hardly have escaped him. 

“ He haunts you. You accept favours from him. You are 
willing enough to listen to him. I know it as well as he does.” 

“ Mr. Wrayburn has been considerate and good to me, 
sir,” said Lizzie, proudly, “ in connection with the death and 
with the memory of my poor father.” 

“ No doubt. He is of course a very considerate and a very 
good man, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn.” 

“He is nothing to you, I think,” said Lizzie, with an 
indignation she could not repress. 

“ Oh yes, he is. There you mistake. He is much to me.” 

“ What can. he be to you ? ” 

“ He can be a rival to me among other things,” said 
Bradley. 

“ Mr. Headstone,” returned Lizzie, with a burning face, 
“it is cowardly in you to speak to me in this way. But it 
makes me able to tell you that I do not like you, and that 
I never have liked you from the first, and that no other 
living creature has anything to do with the effect you have 
produced upon me for yourself.” 

His head bent for a moment, as if under a weight, and he 
then looked up again, moistening his lips. “ I was going on 
with the little I had left to say. I knew all this about Mr. 
Eugene Wrayburn, all the while you were drawing me to 
you. I strove against the knowledge, but quite in vain. It 
made no difference in me. With Mr. Eugene Wrayburn in 
my mind, I went on. With Mr. Eugene Wrayburn in my 
mind, I spoke to you just now. With Mr. Eugene Wrayburn 
in my mind, I have been set aside and I have been cast out.” 


450 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ If you give those names to my thanking you for your 
proposal and declining it, is it my fault, Mr. Headstone ? ” 
said Lizzie, compassionating the bitter struggle he could not 
conceal, almost as much as she was repelled and alarmed 
by it. 

“ I am not complaining,” he returned, “ I am only stating 
the case. I had to wrestle with my self-respect when I 
submitted to be drawn to you in spite of Mr. Wrayburn. 
You may imagine how low my self-respect lies now.” 

She was hurt and angry; but repressed herself in con- 
sideration of his suffering, and of his being her brother’s 
friend. 

“ And it lies under his feet,” said Bradley, unfolding his 
hands in spite of himself, and fiercely motioning with them 
both towards the stones of the pavement. “ Remember 
that! It lies under that fellow’s feet, and he treads upon 
it and exults above it.” 

“ He does not! ” said Lizzie. 

“He does!” said Bradley. “I have stood before him 
face to face, and he crushed me down in the dirt of his con- 
tempt, and walked over me. Why ? Because he knew with 
triumph what was in store for me to-night.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Headstone, you talk quite wildly.” 

“ Quite collectedly. I know what I say too well. Now 
I have said all. I have used no threat, remember; I have 
done no more than show you how the case stands; — how 
the case stands, so far.” 

At this moment her brother sauntered into view close by. 
She darted to him, and caught him by the hand. Bradley 
followed, and laid his heavy hand on the boy’s opposite 
shoulder. 

“ Charley Hexam, I am going home. I must walk home 
by myself to-night, and get shut up in my room without 
being spoken to. Give me half an hour’s start, and let me 
be till you find me at my work in the morning. I shall be 
at my work in the morning just as usual.” 

Clasping his hands, he uttered a short unearthly broken 
cry, and went his way. The brother and sister were left 
looking at one another near a lamp in the solitary church- 
yard, and the boy’s face clouded and darkened, as he said in 


THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR 451 

a rough tone: “ What is the meaning of this? What have 
you done to my best friend ? Out with the truth! ” 

“ Charley! ” said his sister. Speak a little more con- 
siderately! ” 

“ I am not in the humour for consideration, or for nonsense 
of any sort,” replied the boy. “ What have you been doing ? 
Why has Mr. Headstone gone from us in that way ? ” 

‘‘ He asked me — you know he asked me — to be his wife, 
Charley.” 

“ Well? ” said the boy, impatiently. 

“ And I was obliged to tell him that I could not be his 
wife.” 

“ You were obliged to tell him! ” repeated the boy angrily, 
between his teeth, and rudely pushing her away. You 
were obliged to tell him! Do you know that he is worth 
fifty of you ? ” 

“ It may easily be so, Charley, but I cannot marry him.” 

“ You mean that you are conscious that you can’t appre- 
ciate him, and don’t deserve him, I suppose? ” 

“ I mean that I do not like him, Charley, and that I will 
never marry him.” 

“ Upon my soul,” exclaimed the boy, you are a nice pic- 
ture of a sister! Upon my soul, you are a pretty piece of 
disinterestedness! And so all my endeavours to cancel the 
past and to raise myself in the world, and to raise you with 
me, are to be beaten down by your low whims; are they? ” 

“ I will not reproach you, Charley.” 

“ Hear her! ” exclaimed the boy, looking round at the 
darkness. “ She won’t reproach me! She does her best to 
destroy my fortunes and her own, and she won’t reproach 
me! Why, you’ll tell me, next, that you won’t reproach 
Mr. Headstone for coming out of the sphere to which he is 
an ornament, and putting himself at your feet, to be rejected 
by you ! ” 

“ No, Charley; I will only tell you, as I told himself, that 
I thank him for doing so, that I am sorry he did so, and 
that I hope he will do much better, and be happy.” 

Some touch of compunction smote the boy’s hardening 
heart as he looked upon her, his patient little nurse in in- 
fancy, his patient friend, adviser, and reclaimer in boyhood. 


452 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


the self-forgetting sister who had done everything for him. 
His tone relented, and he drew her arm through his. 

“ Now come, Liz; don’t let us quarrel: let us be reason- 
able and talk this over like brother and sister. Will you 
listen to me?” 

“Oh, Charley!” she replied through her starting tears; 
“ do I not listen to you, and hear many hard things ? ” 

“ Then I am sorry. There, Liz! I am unfeignedly sorry. 
Only you do put me out so. Now see. Mr. Headstone is 
perfectly devoted to you. He has told me in the strongest 
manner that he has never been his own self for one single 
minute since I first brought him to see ;^^ou. Miss Peecher, 
our schoolmistress — pretty and young, and all that — is 
known to be very much attached to him, and he won’t so 
much as look at her or hear of her. Now his devotion to 
you must be a disinterested one, mustn’t it? If he married 
Miss Peecher, he would be a great deal better off in all 
worldly respects than in marrying you. Well then; he has 
nothing to get by it, has he ? ” 

“Nothing, Heaven knows!” 

“ Very well then,” said the boy; “ that’s something in his 
favour, and a great thing. Then I come in. Mr. Headstone 
has always got me on, and he has a good deal in his 
power, and of course if he was my brother-in-law he wouldn’t 
get me on less, but would get me on more. Mr. Headstone 
comes and confides in me, in a very delicate way, and says, 
‘ I hope my marrying your sister would be agreeable to you, 
Hexam, and useful to you ? ’ I say, ‘ There s nothing in the 
world, Mr. Headstone, that I could be better pleased with.’ 
Mr. Headstone says, ‘ Then I may rely upon your intimate 
knowledge of me for your good word with your sister, 
Hexam ? ’ And I say, ‘ Certainly, Mr. Headstone, and 
naturally I have a good deal of influence with her.’ So I 
have; haven’t I, Liz?” 

“Yes, Charley.” 

“ Well said! Now, you see, we begin to get on the moment 
we begin to be really talking it over, like brother and sister. 
Very well. Then you come in. As Mr. Headstone’s wife 
you would be occupying a most respectable station, and you 
would be holding a far better place in society than you hold 


THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR 


453 


now, and you would at length get quit of the river-side and 
the old disagreeables belonging to it, and you would be rid 
for good of dolls’ dressmakers and their drunken fathers, and 
the like of that. Not that I want to disparage Miss Jenny 
Wren: I dare say she is all very well in her way; but her 
way is not your way as Mr. Headstone’s wife. Now, you 
see, Liz, on all three accounts — on Mr. Headstone’s, on 
mine, on yours, — nothing could be better or more desirable.” 

They were walking slowly as the boy spoke, and here he 
stood still, to see what effect he had made. His sister’s eyes 
were fixed upon him; but as they showed no yielding, and 
as she remained silent, he walked her on again. There was 
some discomfiture in his tone as he resumed, though he tried 
to conceal it. 

“ Having so much influence with you, Liz, as I have, 
perhaps I should have done better to have had a little chat 
with you in the first instance, before Mr. Headstone spoke 
for himself. But really all this in his favour seemed so plain 
and undeniable, and I knew you to have always been so 
reasonable and sensible, that I didn’t consider it worth while. 
Very likely that was a mistake of mine. However, it’s soon 
set right. All that need be done to set it right is for you 
to tell me at once that I may go home and tell Mr. Head- 
stone that what has taken place is not final, and that it will 
all come round by and by.” 

He stopped again. The pale face looked anxiously and 
lovingly at him, but she shook her head. 

“ Can’t you speak ? ” said the boy sharply. 

“ I am very unwilling to speak, Charley, but if I must, I 
must. I cannot authorise you to say any such thing to Mr. 
Headstone: I cannot allow you to say any such thing to Mr. 
Headstone. Nothing remains to be said to him from me, 
after what I have said for good and all to-night.” 

“ And this girl,” cried the boy, contemptuously throwing 
her off again, calls herself a sister! ” 

“ Charley, dear, that is the second time that you have, 
almost struck me. Don’t be hurt by my words. I don’t 
mean — Heaven forbid! — that you intended it; but you 
hardly know with what a sudden swing you removed yourself 
from me.” 


454 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ However! ” said the boy, taking no heed of the remon- 
strance, and pursuing his own mortified disappointment, “ I 
know what this means, and you shall not disgrace me.” 

“ It means what I have told you, Charley, and nothing 
more.” 

“ That’s not true,” said the boy, in a violent tone, and 
you know it’s not. It means your precious Mr. Wrayburn; 
that’s what it means.” 

“ Charley! If you remember any old days of ours together, 
forbear! ” 

“ But you shall not disgrace me,” doggedly pursued the 
boy. “ I am determined that after I have climbed up out of 
the mire, you shall not pull me down. You can’t disgrace 
me if I have nothing to do with you, and I will have nothing 
to do with you for the future.” 

“ Charley! On many a night like this, and many a worse 
night, I have sat on the stones of the street, hushing you in 
my arms. Unsay those words without even saying you are 
sorry for them, and my arms are open to you still, and so is 
my heart.” 

“ I’ll not unsay them. I’ll say them again. You are an 
inveterately bad girl, and a false sister, and I have done with 
you. For ever, I have done with you! ” 

He threw up his ungrateful and ungracious hand as if it 
set up a barrier between them, and flung himself upon his 
heel and left her. She remained impassive on the same spot, 
silent and motionless, until the striking of the church clock 
roused her, and she turned away. But then, with the breaking 
up of her immobility came the breaking up of the waters 
that the cold heart of the selfish boy had frozen. And “ Oh, 
that I were lying here with the dead!” and “ Oh, Charley, 
Charley, that this should be the end of our pictures in the 
fire! ” were all the words she said, as she laid her face in her 
hands on the stone coping. 

A figure passed by, and passed on, but stopped and looked 
round at her. It was the figure of an old man with a bowed 
head, wearing a large-brimmed low-crowned hat, and a long- 
skirted coat. After hesitating a little, the figure turned back, 
and, advancing with an air of gentleness and compassion, 
said: 














kf' 


t 


THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR 


455 


“ Pardon me, young woman, for speaking to you, but you 
are under some distress of mind. I cannot pass upon my way 
and leave you weeping here alone, as if there was nothing in 
the place. Can I help you ? Can I do anything to give you 
comfort ? ” 

She raised her head at the sound of these kind words, and 
answered gladly, “ Oh, Mr. Riah, is it you ? 

My daughter,’" said the old man, I stand amazed! I 
spoke as to a stranger. Take my arm, take my arm. What 
grieves you? Who has done this? Poor girl, poor girl! ” 

“ My brother has quarrelled with me,” sobbed Lizzie, “ and 
renounced me.” 

“He is a thankless dog,” said the Jew, angrily. “ Let 
him go. Shake the dust from thy feet and let him go. Come, 
daughter! Come home with me — it is but across the 
road — and take a little time to recover your peace and to 
make your eyes seemly, and then I will bear you company 
through the streets. For it is past your usual time, and will 
soon be late, and the way is long, and there is much company 
out of doors to-night.” 

She accepted the support he offered her, and they slowly 
passed out of the churchyard. They were in the act of 
emerging into the main thoroughfare, when another figure 
loitering discontentedly by, and looking up the street and 
down it, and all about, started and exclaimed, “ Lizzie! why, 
where have you been ? Why, what’s the matter ? ” 

As Eugene Wrayburn thus addressed her, she drew closer 
to the Jew, and bent her head. The Jew having taken in 
the whole of Eugene at one sharp glance, cast his eyes upon 
the ground and stood mute. 

“ Lizzie, what is the matter? ” 

“ Mr. Wrayburn, I cannot tell you now. I cannot tell you 
to-night, if I ever can tell you. Pray leave me.” 

“ But, Lizzie, I came expressly to join you. I came to 
walk home with you, having dined at a coffee-house in this 
neighbourhood and knowing your hour. And I have been 
lingering about,” added Eugene, “ like a bailiff; or,” with a 
look at Riah, “ an old-clothes man.” 

The Jew lifted up his eyes, and took in Eugene once more, 
at another glance. 


456 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Mr. Wrayburn, pray, pray leave me with this protector. 
And one thing more. Pray, pray be careful of yourself/’ 

“Mysteries of Udolpho!” said Eugene, with a look of 
wonder. “ May I be excused for asking, in this elderly 
gentleman’s presence, who is this kind protector? 

“.A trustworthy friend,” said Lizzie. 

“ I will relieve him of his trust,” returned Eugene. “ But 
you must tell me, Lizzie, what is the matter? ” 

“ Her brother is the matter,” said the old man, lifting up 
his eyes again. 

“Our brother the matter?” returned Eugene, with airy 
contempt. “ Our brother is not worth a thought, far less a 
tear. What has our brother done ? ” 

The old man lifted up his eyes again, with one grave look 
at Wrayburn, and one grave glance at Lizzie, as she stood 
looking down. Both were so full of meaning, that even 
Eugene was checked in his light career, and subsided into a 
thoughtful “ Humph! ” 

With an air of perfect patience the old man, remaining 
mute and keeping his eyes cast down, stood, retaining Lizzie’s 
arm, as though, in his habit of passive endurance, it would 
be all one to him if he had stood there motionless all night. 

“ If Mr. Aaron,” said Eugene, who soon found this 
fatiguing, “ will be good enough to relinquish his charge to 
me, he will be quite free for any engagement he may have at 
the Synagogue. Mr. Aaron, will you have the kindness?” 

But the old man stood stock still. 

“ Good evening, Mr. Aaron,” said Eugene, politely; “ we 
need not detain you.” Then turning to Lizzie, “ Is our 
friend Mr. Aaron a little deaf ? ” 

“ My hearing is very good, Christian gentleman,” replied 
the old man, calmly; “ but I will hear only one voice to- 
night desiring me to leave this damsel before I have con- 
veyed her to her home. If she requests it, I will do it. I 
will do it for no one else.” 

“ May I ask why so, Mr. Aaron ? ” said Eugene, quite 
undisturbed in his ease. 

“ Excuse me. If she asks me I will tell her,” replied the 
old man. “ I will tell no one else.” 

“ I do not ask you,” said Lizzie, “ and I beg you to take 


THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR 


457 

me home. Mr. Wrayburn, I have had a bitter trial to-night, 
and I hope you will not think me ungrateful, or mysterious, 
or changeable. I am neither; I am wretched. Pray re- 
member what I said to you. Pray, pray take care.” 

“ My dear Lizzie,” he returned, in a low voice, bending 
over her on the other side; “ of what ? of whom ? ” 

” Of any one you have lately seen and made angry.” 

He snapped his fingers and laughed. “ Come,” said he, 
“ since no better may be, Mr. Aaron and I will divide this 
trust, and see you home together. Mr. Aaron on that side; 
I on this. If perfectly agreeable to Mr. Aaron, the escort 
will now proceed.” 

He knew his power over her. He knew that she would not 
insist upon his leaving her. He knew that, her fears for him 
being aroused, she would be uneasy if he were out of her 
sight. For all his seeming levity and carelessness, he knew 
whatever he chose to know of the thoughts of her heart. 

And going on at her side so gaily, regardless of all that 
had been urged against him; so superior in his sallies and 
self-possession to the gloomy constraint of her suitor, and 
the selfish petulance of her brother; so faithful to her, as it 
seemed, when her own stock was faithless; what an immense 
advantage, what an overpowering influence were his that 
night! Add to the rest, poor girl, that she had heard him 
vilified for her sake, and that she had suffered for his, and 
where the wonder that his occasional tones of serious interest 
(setting off his carelessness, as if it were assumed to calm her), 
that his lightest touch, his lightest look, his very presence 
beside her in the dark common street, were like glimpses of 
an enchanted world, which it was natural for jealousy and 
malice and all meanness to be unable to bear the brightness 
of, and to gird at as bad spirits might! 

Nothing more being said of repairing to Riah’s, they went 
direct to Lizzie’s lodging. A little short of the house door 
she parted from them, and went in alone. 

“ Mr. Aaron,” said Eugene, when they were left together in 
the street, ‘‘ with many thanks for your company, it remains 
for me unwillingly to say Fare well.” 

“ Sir,” returned the other, I give you good night, and I 
wish that you were not so thoughtless.” 


458 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


‘‘ Mr. Aaron,” returned Eugene, “ I give you good night, 
and I wish (for you are a little dull) that you were not so 
thoughtful.” 

But now that his part was played out for the evening, and 
when in turning his back upon the Jew he came off the stage, 
he was thoughtful himself. “ How did Lightwmod’s cate- 
chism run? ” he murmured, as he stopped to light his cigar. 
“What is to come of it? What are you doing? Where 
are you going ? We shall soon know now. Ah ! ” w ith a heavy 
sigh. 

The heavy sigh was repeated, as if by an echo, an hour 
afterwards, when Riah, who had been sitting on some dark 
steps in a corner over against the house, arose and went his 
patient way; stealing through the streets in his ancient dress, 
like the ghost of a departed Time. 


CHAPTER XVI 


AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION 

The estimable Twemlow, dressing himself in his lodgings 
over the stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James’s, and 
hearing the horses at their toilet below, finds himself on the 
whole in a disadvantageous position as compared with the 
noble animals at livery. For whereas, on the one hand, he 
has no attendant to slap him soundingly and require him in 
gruff accents to come up and come over, still, on the other 
hand, he has no attendant at all; and the mild gentleman’s 
finger-joints and other joints working rustily in the morning, 
he could deem it agreeable even to be tied up by the counte- 
nance at his chamber-door, so he were there skilfully rubbed 
down and slushed and sluiced and polished and clothed, 
while himself taking merely a passive part in these trying 
transactions. 

How the fascinating Tippins gets on when arraying herself 
for the bewilderment of the senses of men, is known only 
to the Graces and her maid; but perhaps even that engag- 
ing creature, though not reduced to the self-dependence of 
Twemlow, could dispense with a good deal of the trouble 
attendant on the daily restoration of her charms, seeing that 
as to her face and neck this adorable divinity is, as it were, 
a diurnal species of lobster — throwing off a shell every fore- 
noon, and needing to keep in a retired spot until the new 
crust hardens. 

Howbeit, Twemlow doth at length invest himself with 
collar and cravat and wristbands to his knuckles, and goeth 
forth to breakfast. And to breakfast with whom but his 
near neighbours, the Lammles of Sackville Street, who have 
imparted to him that he will meet his distant kinsman, Mr. 
Fledgeby? The awful Snigsworth might taboo and pro- 


460 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


hibit Fledgeby, but the peaceable Twemlow reasons, “ If 
he is my kinsman I didn’t make him so, and to meet a man 
is not to know him.” 

It is the first anniversary of the happy marriage of Mr. 
and Mrs. Lammle, and the celebration is a breakfast, because 
a dinner on the desired scale of sumptuosity cannot be 
achieved within less limits than those of the non-existent 
palatial residence of which so many people are madly envious. 
So Twemlow trips with not a little stiffness across Piccadilly, 
sensible of having once been more upright in figure and less 
in danger of being knocked down by swift vehicles. To be 
sure that was in the days when he hoped for leave from the 
dread Snigsworth to do something, or be something, in life, 
and before that magnificent Tartar issued the ukase, “ As he 
will never distinguish himself, he must be a poor gentleman- 
pensioner of mine, and let him hereby consider himself 
pensioned.” 

Ah! my Twemlow I Say, little feeble gray personage, what 
thoughts are in thy breast to-day, of the Fancy — so still to 
call her who bruised thy heart when it was green and thy 
head brown — and whether it be better or worse, more painful 
or less, to believe in the Fancy to this hour, than to know her 
for a greedy armour-plated crocodile, with no more capacity 
of imagining the delicate and sensitive and tender spot 
behind thy waistcoat, than of going straight at it with a 
knitting-needle. Say likewise, my Twemlow, whether it be 
the happier lot to be a poor relation of the great, or to stand 
in the wintry slush giving the hack horses to drink out of 
the shallow tub at the coach -stand, into which thou hast so 
nearly set thy uncertain foot. Twemlow says nothing, and 
goes on. 

As he approaches the Lammles’ door, drives up a little 
one-horse carriage, containing Tippins the divine. Tippins, 
letting down the window, playfully extols the vigilance of her 
cavalier in being in waiting there to hand her out. Twem- 
low hands her out with as much polite gravity as if she were 
anything real, and they proceed up-stairs: Tippins all abroad 
about the legs, and seeking to express that those unsteady 
articles are only skipping in their native buoyancy. 

And dear Mrs. Lammle and dear Mr. Lammle, how do you 


AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION 


461 


do, and when are you going down to what’s-its-name place 
— Guy, Earl of Warwick, you know — what is it ? — Dun 
Cow — to claim the flitch of bacon ? And Mortimer, whose 
name is for ever blotted out from my list of lovers, by reason 
first of fickleness and then of base desertion, how do you do, 
wretch? And Mr. Wrayburn, you here! What can you 
come for, because we are all very sure beforehand that you 
are not going to talk! And Veneering, M.P., how are things 
going on down at the House, and when will you turn out 
those terrible people for us ? And Mrs. Veneering, my dear, 
can it positively be true that you go down to that stifling 
place night after night to hear those men prose? Talking 
of which. Veneering, why don’t you prose, for you haven’t 
opened your lips there yet, and we are dying to hear what 
you have got to say to us! Miss Podsnap, charmed to see 
you. Pa, here? No! Ma, neither? Oh! Mr. Boots! De- 
lighted. Mr. Brewer! This is a gathering of the clans. 
Thus Tippins, and surveys Fledgeby and outsiders through 
golden glass, murmuring as she turns about and about, in 
her innocent giddy way, Anybody else I know ? No, I think 
not. Nobody there. Nobody there. Nobody anywhere! 

Mr. Lammle, all a-glitter, produces his friend Fledgeby, 
as dying for the honour of presentation to Lady Tippins. 
Fledgeby presented, has the air of going to say something, 
has the air of going to say nothing, has an air successively of 
meditation, of resignation, and of desolation, backs on Brewer, 
makes the tour of Boots, and fades into the extreme back- 
ground, feeling for his whisker, as if it might have turned 
up since he was there five minutes ago. 

But Lammle has him out again before he has so much as 
completely ascertained the bareness of the land. He would 
seem to be in a bad way, Fledgeby; for Lammle represents 
him as dying again. He is dying now of want of presentation 
to Twemlow. 

Twemlow offers his hand. Glad to see him. “ Your 
mother, sir, was a connection of mine.” 

“ I believe so,” says Fledgeby, “ but my mother and her 
family were two.” 

“ Are you staying in town? ” asks Twemlow. 

“ I always am,” says Fledgeby. 


462 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ You like town,” says Twemlow. But is felled flat by 
Fledgeby’s taking it quite ill, and replying. No, he don’t like 
town. Lammle tries to break the force of the fall, by re- 
marking that some people do not like town. Fledgeby re- 
torting that he never heard of any such case but his own, 
Twemlow goes down again heavily. 

“There is nothing new this morning, I suppose?” says 
Twemlow, returning to the mark with great spirit. 

Fledgeby has not heard of anything. 

No, there’s not a word of news,” says Lammle. 

“ Not a particle,” adds Boots. 

“ Not an atom,” chimes in Brewer. 

Somehow the execution of this little concerted piece appears 
to raise the general spirits as with a sense of duty done, and 
sets the company a-going. Everybody seems more equal than 
before to the calamity of being in the society of everybody 
else. Even Eugene standing in a window, moodily swinging 
the tassel of a blind, gives it a smarter jerk now, as if he 
found himself in better case. 

Breakfast announced. Everything on table showy and 
gaudy, but with a self-assertingly temporary and nomadic air 
on the decorations, as boasting that they will be much more 
showy and gaudy in the palatial residence. Mr. Lammle’s 
own particular servant behind his chair; the Analytical 
behind Veneering’s chair; instances in point that such 
servants fall into two classes: one mistrusting the master’s 
acquaintances, and the other mistrusting the master. Mr. 
Lammle’s servant, of the second class. Appearing to be lost 
in wonder and low spirits because the police are so long in 
coming to take his master up on some charge of the first 
magnitude. 

Veneering, M.P., on the right of Mrs. Lammle; Twemlow 
on her left; Mrs. Veneering, W.M.P. (wife of Member of 
Parliament), and Lady Tippins on Mr. Lammle’s right and 
left. But be sure that well within the fascination of Mr. 
Lammle’s eye and smile sits little Georgiana. And be sure 
that close to little Georgiana, also under inspection by the 
same gingerous gentleman, sits Fledgeby. 

Oftener than twice or thrice while breakfast is in progress, 
Mr. Twemlow gives a little sudden turn towards Mrs. 


AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION 


463 


Lammle, and then says to her, “ I beg your pardon! ’’ This 
not being Twemlow’s usual way, why is it his way to-day ? 
Why, the truth is, Twemlow repeatedly labours under the 
impression that Mrs. Lammle is going to speak to him, and 
turning, finds that it is not so, and mostly that she has her 
eyes upon Veneering. Strange that this impression so abides 
by Twemlow after being corrected, yet so it is. 

Lady Tippins partaking plentifully of the fruits of the 
earth (including grape juice in the category), becomes livelier, 
and applies herself to elicit sparks from Mortimer Lightwood. 
It is always understood among the initiated, that that faith- 
less lover must be planted at table opposite to Lady Tippins, 
who will then strike conversational fire out of him. In a 
pause of mastication and deglutition, Lady Tippins, contem- 
plating Mortimer, recalls that it was at our dear Veneerings’, 
and in the presence of a party who are surely all here, that 
he told them his story of the man from somewhere, which 
afterwards became so horribly interesting and vulgarly 
popular. 

“ Yes, Lady Tippins,'’ assents Mortimer; “ as they say on 
the stage. Even so! ” 

“ Then we expect you,” retorts the charmer, “ to sustain 
your reputation, and tell us something else.” 

“ Lady Tippins, I exhausted myself for life that day, and 
there is nothing more to be got out of me.” 

Mortimer parries thus, with a sense upon him that else- 
where it is Eugene and not he who is the jester, and that in 
these circles where Eugene persists in being speechless, he, 
Mortimer, is but the double of the friend on whom he has 
founded himself. 

But,” quoth the fascinating Tippins, “ I am resolved on 
getting something more out of you. Traitor! what is this 
I hear about another disappearance ? ” 

As it is you who have heard it,” returns Lightwood, 
perhaps you'll tell us.” 

^‘Monster, away!” retorts Lady Tippins. “Your own 
Golden Dustman referred me to you.” 

Mr. Lammle, striking in here, proclaims aloud that there 
is a sequel to the story of the man from somewhere. Silence 
ensues upon the proclamation. 


464 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I assure you,” says Lightwood, glancing round the table, 
“ I have nothing to tell.” But Eugene adding in a low 
voice, “ There, tell it, tell it! ” he corrects himself with the 
addition, “ Nothing worth mentioning.” 

Boots and Brewer immediately perceive that it is im- 
mensely worth mentioning, and become politely clamorous. 
Veneering is also visited by a perception to the same effect. 
But it is understood that his attention is now rather used 
up, and difficult to hold, that being the tone of the House of 
Commons. 

“ Pray don't be at the trouble of composing yourselves 
to listen,” says Mortimer Lightwood, “ because I shall have 
finished long before you have fallen into comfortable atti- 
tudes. It’s like ” 

“ It’s like,” impatiently interrupts Eugene, “ the children’s 
narrative: 

‘ ril tell you a story 
Of Jack a Manory, 

And now my story’s begun; 

I’ll tell you another 
Of Jack and his brother, 

And now my story is done.' 

— Get on, and get it over! ” 

Eugene says this with a sound of vexation in his voice, 
leaning back in his chair and looking balefully at Lady 
Tippins, who nods to him as her dear Bear, and playfully 
insinuates that she (a self-evident proposition) is Beauty, and 
he Beast. 

“ The reference,” proceeds Mortimer, “ which I suppose to 
be made by my honourable and fair enslaver opposite, is to 
the following circumstance. Very lately, the young woman, 
Lizzie Hexam, daughter of the late Jesse Hexam, otherwise 
Gaffer, who will be remembered to have found the body of 
the man from somewhere, mysteriously received, she knew 
not from whom, an explicit retractation of the charges made 
against her father by another waterside character of the name 
of Riderhood. Nobody believed them, because little Rogue 
Riderhood — I am tempted into the paraphrase by remem- 
bering the charming wolf who would have rendered society 
a great service if he had devoured Mr. Riderhood’ s father 


AN ANNIVEKSARY OCCASION 


465 


and mother in their infancy — had previously played fast 
and loose with the said charges, and, in fact, abandoned 
them. However, the retractation I have mentioned found 
its way into Lizzie Hexam’s hands, with a general flavour 
on it of having been favoured by some anonymous mes- 
senger in a dark cloak and slouched hat, and was by her 
forwarded, in her father’s vindication, to Mr. Boffin, my 
client. You will excuse the phraseology of the shop, but as 
I never had another client, and in all likelihood never shall 
have, I am rather proud of him as a natural curiosity prob- 
ably unique.” 

Although as easy as usual on the surface, Lightwood is 
not quite as easy as usual below it. With an air of not 
minding Eugene at all, he feels that the subject is not alto- 
gether a safe one in that connection. 

“ The natural curiosity which forms the sole ornament of 
my professional museum,” he resumes, “ hereupon desires 
his Secretary — an individual of the hermit-crab or oyster 
species, and whose name, I think, is Chokesmith — but it 
doesn’t in the least matter — say Artichoke — to put himself 
in communication with Lizzie Hexam. Artichoke professes 
his readiness so to do, endeavours to do so, but fails.” 

Why fails ? ” asks Boots. 

“ How fails? ” asks Brewer. 

“ Pardon me,” returns Lightwood, “•! must postpone the 
reply for one moment, or we shall have an anti-climax. 
Artichoke failing signally, my client refers the task to me: 
his purpose being to advance the interests of the object of his 
search. I proceed to put myself in communication with her; 
I even happen to possess some special means,” with a glance 
at Eugene, “ of putting myself in communication with her, 
but I fail too, because she has vanished.” 

“ Vanished! ” is the general echo. 

Disappeared,” says Mortimer. “ Nobody knows how, 
nobody knows when, nobody knows where. And so ends 
the story to which my honourable and fair enslaver opposite 
referred.” 

Tippins, with a bewitching little scream, opines that we 
shall every one of us be murdered in our beds. Eugene 
eyes her as if some of us would be enough for him. Mrs. 


466 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Veneering, W.M.P., remarks that these social mysteries 
make one afraid of leaving Baby. Veneering, M.P., wishes 
to be informed (with something of a second-hand air of 
seeing the Right Honourable Gentleman at the head of the 
Home Department in his place) whether it is intended to be 
conveyed that the vanished person has been spirited away 
or otherwise harmed ? Instead of Lightwood’s answering, 
Eugene answers, and answers hastily and vexedly: “ No, no, 
no: he doesn’t mean that; he means voluntarily vanished — 
but utterly — completely.” 

However, the great subject of the happiness of Mr. and 
Mrs. Lammle must not be allowed to vanish with the other 
vanishments — with the vanishing of the murderer, the 
vanishing of Julius Handford, the vanishing of Lizzie Hexam, 
— and therefore Veneering must recall the present sheep to 
the pen from which they have strayed. Who so fit to discourse 
of the happiness of Mr. and Mrs. Lammle, they being the 
dearest and oldest friends he has in the world; or what 
audience so fit for him to take into his confidence as that 
audience, a noun of multitude, or signifying many, who are 
all the oldest and dearest friends he has in the world? So 
Veneering, without the formality of rising, launches into a 
familiar oration, gradually toning into the parliamentary 
sing-song, in which he sees at that board his dear friend 
Twemlow, who on that day twelvemonth bestowed on his 
dear friend Lammle the fair hand of his dear friend Sophronia, 
and in which he also sees at that board his dear friends Boots 
and Brewer, whose rallying round him at a period when his 
dear friend Lady Tippins likewise rallied round him — ay, 
and in the foremost rank — he can never forget while memory 
holds her seat. But he is free to confess that he misses from 
that board his dear old friend Podsnap, though he is well 
represented by his dear young friend Georgiana. And he 
further sees at that board (this he announces with pomp, as 
if exulting in the powers of an extraordinary telescope) his 
friend Mr. Fledgeby, if he will permit him to call him so. 
For all of these reasons, and many more which he right well 
knows will have occurred to persons of your exceptional 
acuteness, he is here to submit to you that the time has 
arrived when, with our hearts in our glasses, with tears in 


AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION 


467 


our eyes, with blessings on our lips, and in a general way 
with a profusion of gammon and spinach in our emotional 
larders, we should one and all drink to our dear friends the 
Lammles, wishing them many many years as happy as the 
last, and many many friends as congenially united as them- 
selves. And this he will add: that Anastatia Veneering 
(who is instantly heard to weep) is formed on the same model 
as her old and chosen friend Sophronia Lammle, in respect 
that she is devoted to the man who wooed and won her, and 
nobly discharges the duties of a wife. 

Seeing no better way out of it. Veneering here pulls up 
his oratorical Pegasus extremely short, and plumps down 
clean over his head, with: “ Lammle, God bless you! ” 

Then Lammle. Too much of him every way; pervadingly 
too much nose of a coarse wrong shape, and his nose in his 
mind and his manners; too much smile to be real; too much 
frown to be false; too many large teeth to be visible at once 
without suggesting a bite. He thanks you, dear friends, for 
your kindly greeting, and hopes to receive you — it may be on 
the next of these delightful occasions — in a residence better 
suited to your claims on the rites of hospitality. He will 
never forget that at Vene^ing’s he first saw Sophronia. 
Sophronia will never forget that at Veneering’ s she first saw 
him. They spoke of it soon after they were married, and 
agreed that they would never forget it. In fact, to Veneering 
they owe their union. They hope to show their sense of this 
some day No, no,” from Veneering) — oh yes, yes, and let 
him rely upon it, they will if they can! His marriage with 
Sophronia was not a marriage of interest on either side: she 
had her little fortune, he had his little fortune: they joined 
their little fortunes: it was a marriage of pure inclination 
and suitability. Thank you! Sophronia and he are fond of 
the society of young people; but he is not sure that their 
house would be a good house for young people proposing to 
remain single, since the contemplation of its domestic bliss 
might induce them to change their minds. He will not apply 
this to any one present; certainly not to their darling little 
Georgiana. Again thank you! Neither, by-the-bye, will he 
apply it to his friend Fledgeby. He thanks Veneering for 
the feeling manner in which he referred to their common 


468 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


friend Fledgeby, for he holds that gentleman in the highest 
estimation. Thank you. In fact (returning unexpectedly to 
Fledgeby), the better you know him, the more you find in 
him that you desire to know. Again thank you I In his 
dear Sophronia’s name and in his own, thank you! 

Mrs. Lammle has sat quite still with her eyes cast down 
upon the table-cloth. As Mr. Lammle’s address ends, Twem- 
low once more turns to her involuntarily, not cured yet of 
that often recurring impression that she is going to speak 
to him. This time she really is going to speak to him. 
Veneering is talking with his other next neighbour, and she 
speaks in a low voice. 

“Mr. Twemlow.” 

He answers, “ I beg your pardon? Yes?” Still a little 
doubtful, because of her not looking at him. 

“You have the soul of a gentleman, and I know I may 
trust you. Will you give me the opportunity of saying a 
few words to you when you come up-stairs? ” 

“ Assuredly. I shall be honoured.” 

“ Don’t seem to do so, if yoii please, and don’t think it 
inconsistent if my manner should be more careless than my 
words. I may be watched.” 

Intensely astonished, Twemlow puts his hand to his fore- 
head, and sinks back in his chair meditating. Mrs. Lammle 
rises. All rise. The ladies go up-stairs. The gentlemen 
soon saunter after them. Fledgeby has devoted the interval 
to taking an observation of Boots’s whiskers, Brewer’s 
whiskers, and Lammle’s wTiskers, and considering which 
pattern of whisker he would prefer to produce out of himself 
by friction, if the Genie of the cheek w’ould only answer to 
his rubbing. 

In the drawing-room, groups form as usual. Lightwood, 
Boots, and Brewer, flutter like moths around that yellow 
wax candle — guttering down, and with some hint of a wind- 
ing sheet in it — Lady Tippins. Outsiders cultivate Veneer- 
ing, M.P., and Mrs. Veneering, W.M.P. Lammle stands with 
folded arms, Mephistophelean in a corner, with Georgiana 
and Fledgeby. Mrs. Lammle, on a sofa by a table, invites 
Mr. Twemlow’ s attention to a book of portraits in her 
hand. 


AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION 469 

• Mr. Twemlow takes his station on a settee before her, and 
Mrs. Lammle shows him a portrait. 

“ You have reason to be surprised,” she says softly, “ but 
I wish you wouldn’t look so.” 

Disturbed Twemlow, making an effort not to look so, looks 
much more so. 

“ I think, Mr. Twemlow, you never saw that distant con- 
nection of yours before to-day ? ” 

No, never.” 

Now that you do see him, you see what he is. You are 
not proud of him ? ” 

“ To say the truth, Mrs. Lammle, no.” 

If you knew more of him, you would be less inclined to 
acknowledge him. Here is another portrait. What do you 
think of it? ” 

Twemlow has just presence of mind enough to say aloud; 
“ Very like! Uncommonly like! ” 

“ You have noticed, perhaps, whom he favours with his 
attentions? You notice where he is now, and how en- 
gaged ? ” 

“Yes. But Mr. Lammle ” 

She darts a look at him which he cannot comprehend, and 
shows him another portrait. 

“ Very good; is it not? ” 

“ Charming! ” says Twemlow. 

“ So like as to be almost a caricature? — Mr. Twemlow, it 
is impossible to tell you what the struggle in my mind has 
been before I could bring myself to speak to you as I do now. 
It is only in the conviction that I may trust you never to 
betray me, that I can proceed. Sincerely promise me that 
you never will betray my confidence — that you will respect 
it, even though you may no longer respect me, — and I shall 
be as satisfied as if you had sworn it.” 

“ Madam, on the honour of a poor gentleman ” 

“ Thank you. I can desire no more. Mr. Twemlow, I 
implore you to save that child 1 ” 

“ That child ? ” 

“ Georgiana. She will be sacrificed. She will be inveigled 
and married to that connection of yours. It is a partnership 
affair, a money speculation. She has no strength of will or 


470 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


character to help herself, and she is on the brink of being 
sold into wretchedness for life/’ 

“ Amazing! But what can I do to prevent it? ” demands 
Twemlow, shocked and bewildered to the last degree. 

“ Here is another portrait. And not good, is it? ” 

Aghast at the light manner of her throwing her head back 
to look at it critically, Twemlow still dimly perceives the 
expediency of throwing his own head back, and does so. 
Though he no more sees the portrait than if it were in China. 

Decidedly not good,” says Mrs. Lammle. “ Stiff and 
exaggerated! ” 

'‘And ex ” But Twemlow, in his demolished state, 

cannot command the word, and trails off into “ actly so.” 

“ Mr. Twemlow, your word will have weight with her 
pompous, self-blinded father. You know how much he 
makes of your family. Lose no time. Warn him.” 

“ But warn him against whom ? ” 

“ Against me.” 

By great good fortune Twemlow receives a stimulant at 
this critical instant. The stimulant is Lammle’s voice. 

“ Sophronia, my dear, what portraits are you showing 
Twemlow ? ” 

“ Public characters, Alfred.” 

“ Show him the last of me.” 

“ Yes, Alfred.” 

She puts the book down, takes another book up, turns the 
leaves, and presents the portrait to Twemlow. 

“ That is the last of Mr. Lammle. Do you think it good ? 
— Warn her father against me. I deserve it, for I have been 
in the scheme from the first. It is my husband’s scheme, 
your connection’s, and mine. I tell you this, only to show 
you the necessity of the poor little, foolish, affectionate crea- 
ture’s being befriended and rescued. You will not repeat 
this to her father. You will spare me so far, and spare my 
husband. For though this celebration of to-day is all a 
mockery, he is my husband, and we must live. — Do you 
think it like ? ” 

Twemlow, in a stunned condition, feigns to compare the 
portrait in his hand with the original, looking towards him 
from his Mephistophelean corner. 


AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION 471 

“Very well indeed!” are at length the words which 
Twemlow with great difficulty extracts from himself. 

“ I am glad you think so. On the whole, I myself con- 
sider it the best. The others are so dark. Now here, for 
instance, is another of Mr. Lammle ” 

“ But I don’t understand; I don’t see my way,” Twemlow 
stammers, as he falters over the book with his glass at his 
eye. “ How warn her father, and not tell him? Tell him 
how much ? Tell him how little ? I — I — am getting lost.” 

“Tell him I am a match-maker; tell him I am an artful 
and designing woman ; tell him you are sure his daughter is best 
out of my house and my company. Tell him any such things 
of me; they will all be true. You know what a puffed-up 
man he is, and how easily you can cause his vanity to take 
the alarm. Tell him as much as will give him the alarm and 
make him careful of her, and spare me the rest. Mr. Twem- 
low, I feel my sudden degradation in your eyes; familiar as 
I am with my degradation in my own eyes, I keenly feel the 
change that must have come upon me in yours, in these last 
few moments. But I trust to your good faith with me as 
implicitly as when I began. If you knew how often I have 
tried to speak to you to-day, you would almost pity me. I 
want no new promise from you on my own account, for I am 
satisfied, and I always shall be satisfied, with the promise you 
have given me. I can venture to say no more, for I see that 
I am watched. If you will set my mind at rest with the 
assurance that you will interpose with the father and save 
this harmless girl, close that book before you return it to me, 
and I shall know what you mean, and deeply thank you in 
my heart. — Alfred, Mr. Twemlow thinks the last one the 
best, and quite agrees with you and me.” 

Alfred advances. The groups break up. Lady Tippins 
rises to go, and Mrs. Veneering follows her leader. For the 
moment, Mrs. Lammle does not turn to them, but remains 
looking at Twemlow looking at Alfred’s portrait through his 
eyeglass. The moment past, Twemlow drops his eyeglass 
at its ribbon’s length, rises, and closes the book with an 
emphasis which makes that fragile nursling of the fairies, 
Tippins, start. 

Then good-bye and good-bye, and charming occasion 


472 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


worthy of the Golden Age, and more about the flitch of 
bacon, and the like of that; and Twemlow goes staggering 
across Piccadilly with his hand to his forehead, and .is nearly 
run down by a flushed letter-cart, and at last drops safe in 
his easy-chair, innocent good gentleman, with his hand to his 
forehead still and his head in a whirl. 


BOOK THE THIRD 
A LONG LANE 
CHAPTER I 

t 

LODGERS IN QUEER STREET 

• 

It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and 
dark. Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated 
lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate 
London was a sooty spectre, divided in purpose between 
being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither. 
Gaslights flared in the shops with a haggard and unblest 
air, as knowing themselves to be night-creatures that had 
no business abroad under the sun; while the sun itself, 
when it was for a few moments dimly indicated through 
circling eddies of fog, showed as if it had gone out, and were 
collapsing flat and cold. Even in the surrounding country 
it was a foggy day, but there the fog was gray, whereas in 
London it was, at about the boundary line, dark yellow, 
and a little within it brown, and then browner, and then 
browner, until at the heart of the City — which call Saint 
Mary Axe — it was rusty-black. From any point of the high 
ridge of land northward, it might have been discerned that 
the loftiest buildings made an occasional struggle to get 
their heads above the foggy sea, and especially that the 
great dome of Saint Paul’s seemed to die hard; but this 


474 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


was not perceivable in the streets at their feet, where the 
whole metropolis was a heap of vapour charged with muffled 
sound of wheels, and enfolding a gigantic catarrh. 

At nine o’clock on such a morning, the place of business 
of Pubsey and Co. was not the liveliest object even in Saint 
Mary Axe — which is not a very lively spot — with a sobbing 
gaslight in the counting-house window, and a burglarious 
stream of fog creeping in to strangle it through the keyhole 
of the main door. But the light went out, and the main 
door opened, and Riah came forth with a •bag under his 
arm. 

Almost in the act of coming out at the door, Riah went 
into the fog, and was lost to the eyes of Saint Mary Axe. 
But the eyes of this history can follow him westward, by 
Cornhill, Cheapside, Fleet Street, and the Strand, to Picca- 
dilly and the Albany. Thither he went at his grave and 
measured pace, staff in hand, skirt at heel; and more than 
one head, turning to look back at his venerable figure already 
lost in the mist, supposed it to be some ordinary figure in- 
distinctly seen, which fancy and the fog had worked into that 
passing likeness. 

Arrived at the house in which his master’s chambers w^ere 
on the second floor, Riah proceeded up the stairs, and 
paused at Fascination Fledge by ’s door. Making free with 
neither bell nor knocker, he struck upon the door wdth the 
top of his staff, and, having listened, sat down on the threshold. 
It was characteristic of his habitual submission, that he sat 
down on the raw dark staircase, as many of his ancestors 
had probably sat down in dungeons, taking what befell him 
as it might befall. 

After a time, when he had grown so cold as to be fain to 
blow upon his fingers, he arose and knocked with his staff 
again, and listened again, and again sat down to wait. Thrice 
he repeated these actions before his listening ears were 
greeted by the voice of Fledgeby, calling from his bed, 
“ Hold your row! — I’ll come and open the door directly! ” 
But, in lieu of coming directly, he fell into a sweet sleep 
for some quarter of an hour more, during which added 
interval Riah sat upon the stairs and waited with perfect 
patience. 


LODGERS IN QUEER STREET 


475 


At length the door stood open, and Mr, Fledgeby*s re- 
treating drapery plunged into bed again. Following it at 
a respectful distance, Riah passed into the bed-chamber, 
where a fire had been some time lighted, and was burning 
briskly. 

“Why, what time of night do you mean to call it?” 
inquired Fledgeby, turning away beneath the clothes, and 
presenting a comfortable rampart of shoulder to the chilled 
figure of the old man. 

“ Sir, it is full half-past ten in the morning.” 

“ The deuce it is! Then it must be precious foggy ? ” 

“ Very foggy, sir.” 

“And raw, then? ” 

“ Chill and bitter,” said Riah, drawing out a handkerchief, 
and wiping the moisture from his beard and long gray hair 
as he stood on the verge of the rug, with his eyes on the 
acceptable fire. 

With a plunge of enjoyment, Fledgeby settled himself 
afresh. 

“ Any snow, or sleet, or slush, or anything of that sort ? ” 
he asked. 

“ No, sir, no. Not quite so bad as that. The streets are 
pretty clean.” 

“ You needn’t brag about it,” returned Fledgeby, dis- 
appointed in his desire to heighten the contrast between his 
bed and the streets. “ But you’re always bragging about 
something. Got the books there ? ” 

“ They are here, sir.” 

“ All right. I’ll turn the general subject over in my mind 
for a minute or two, and while I’m about it you can empty your 
bag and get ready for me.” 

With another comfortable plunge, Mr. Fledgeby fell asleep 
again. The old man, having obeyed his directions, sat down 
on the edge of a chair, and, folding his hands before him, 
gradually yielded to the influence of the warmth, and dozed. 
He was roused by Mr. Fledgeby ’s appearing erect at the 
foot of the bed, in Turkish slippers, rose-coloured Turkish 
trousers (got cheap from somebody who had cheated some 
other somebody out of them), and a gown and cap to corre- 
spond. In that costume he would have left nothing to be 


476 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


desired, if he had been further fitted out with a bottomless 
chair, a lantern, and a bunch of matches. 

Now, old ’un>! ” cried Fascination, in his light raillery, 
“ what dodgery are you up to next, sitting there with your 
eyes shut? You ain’t asleep. Catch a weasel at it, and catch 
a Jew! ” 

“ Truly, sir, I fear I nodded,” said the old man. 

“Not you!” returned Fledgeby, with a cunning look. 
“ A telling move with a good many, I dare say, but it won’t 
put me off my guard. Not a bad notion, though, if you 
want to look indifferent in driving a bargain. Oh, you are 
a dodger! ” 

The old man shook his head, gently repudiating the im- 
putation, and suppressed a sigh, and moved to the table at 
which Mr. Fledgeby was now pouring out for himself a cup 
of steaming and fragrant coffee from a pot that had stood 
ready on the hob. It was an edifying spectacle, the young 
man in his easy-chair taking his coffee, and the old man with 
his gray head bent, standing awaiting his pleasure. 

“Now!” said Fledgeby. “Fork out your balance in 
hand, and prove by figures how you make it out that it 
ain’t more. First of all, light that candle.” 

Riah obeyed, and then taking a bag from his breast, and 
referring to the sum in the accounts for which they made 
him responsible, told it out upon the table. Fledgeby told 
it again with great care, and rang every sovereign. 

“ I suppose,” he said, taking one up to eye it closely, 
“ you haven’t been lightening any of these; but it’s a trade 
of your people’s, you know. You understand what sweating 
a pound means; don’t you ? ” 

“ Much as you do, sir,” returned the old man, with his 
hands under opposite cuffs of his loose sleeves, as he stood 
at the table, deferentially observant of the master’s face. 
“ May I take the liberty to say something? ” 

“ You may,” Fledgeby graeiously conceded. 

“ Do you not, sir — without intending it — of a surety with- 
out intending it — sometimes mingle the character I fairly 
earn in your employment, with the character which it is 
your policy that I should bear ? ” 

“ I don’t find it worth my while to cut things so 


LODGERS IN QUEER STREET 


477 


fine as to go into the inquiry/’ Fascination coolly an- 
swered. 

“ Not in justice? ” 

Bother justice! ” said Fledgeby. 

“ Not in generosity ? ” 

Jews and generosity! ” said Fledgeby. “That’s a good 
connection! Bring out your vouchers, and don’t talk Jeru- 
salem palaver.” 

The vouchers were produced, and for the next half-hour 
Mr. Fledgeby concentrated his sublime attention on them. 
They and the accounts were all found correct, and the books 
and the papers resumed their places in the bag. 

“ Next,” said Fledgeby, “ concerning that bill-broking 
branch of the business; the branch I like best. What queer 
bills are to be bought, and at what prices? You have got 
your list of what’s in the market ? ” 

“Sir, a long list,” replied Riah, taking out a pocket-book, 
and selecting from its contents a folded paper, which, being 
unfolded, became a sheet of foolscap covered with close 
writing. 

“Whew!” whistled Fledgeby, as he took it in his hand. 
“ Queer Street is full of lodgers just at present! These are 
to be disposed of in parcels; are they ? ” 

“ In parcels as set forth,” returned the old man, looking 
over his master’s shoulder; or the lump.” 

“ Half the lump will be waste-paper, one knows before- 
hand,” said Fledgeby. “ Can you get it at waste-paper 
price ? That’s the question.” 

Riah shook his head, and Fledgeby cast his small eyes 
down the list. They presently began to twinkle, and he no 
sooner became conscious of their twinkling, than he looked 
up over his shoulder at the grave face above him, and moved 
to the chimneypiece. Making a desk of it, he stood there 
with his back to the old man, warming his knees, perusing 
the list at his leisure, and often returning to some lines of 
it, as though they were particularly interesting. At those 
times he glanced in the chimney-glass to see what note the 
old man took of him. He took none that could be detected, 
but, aware of his employer’s suspicions, stood with his eyes 
on the ground. 


478 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Mr. Fledgeby was thus amiably engaged when a step was 
heard at the outer door, and the door was heard to open 
hastily. “ Hark! That’s your doing, you Pump of Israel,” 
said Fledgeby; ‘‘ you can’t have shut it.” Then the step 
was heard within, and the voice of Mr. Alfred Lammle 
called aloud, “ Are you anywhere here, Fledgeby ? ” To 
which Fledgeby, after cautioning Riah in a low voice to take 
his cue as it should be given him, replied, “ Here I am! ” 
and opened his bedroom door. 

“Come in!” said Fledgeby. “This gentleman is only 
Pubsey and Co., of Saint Mary Axe, that I am trying to 
make terms for an unfortunate friend with in a matter of 
some dishonoured bills. But really Pubsey and Co. are so 
strict with their debtors, and so hard to move, that I seem 
to be wasting my time. Can’t I make any terms with you 
on my friend’s part, Mr. Riah? ” 

“ I am but the representative of another, sir,” returned 
the Jew in a low voice. “ I do as I am bidden by my principal. 
It is not my capital that is invested in the business. It is 
not my profit that arises therefrom.” 

“ Ha ha! ” laughed Fledgeby. “ Lammle ? ” 

“ Ha ha I ” laughed Lammle. “Yes. Of course. We 
know.” 

“Devilish good, ain’t it, Lammle?” said Fledgeby, un- 
speakably amused by his hidden joke. 

“Always the same, always the same!” said Lammle. 
“ Mr. ” 

“ Riah, Pubsey, and Co., Saint Mary Axe,” Fledgeby put 
in, as he wiped away the tears that trickled from his eyes, 
so rare was his enjoyment of his secret joke. 

“ Mr. Riah is bound to observe the invariable forms for 
such cases made and provided,” said Lammle. 

“ He is only the representative of another! ” cried 
Fledgeby. “ Does as he is told by his principal ! Not his capital 
that’s invested in the business. Oh, that’s good! Ha ha 
ha ha! ” Mr. Lammle joined in the laugh and looked know- 
ing; and the more he did both, the more exquisite the secret 
joke became for Mr. Fledgeby. 

“ However,” said that fascinating gentleman, wiping his 
eyes again, “if we go on in this way, we shall seem to be 


LODGERS IN QUEER STREET 


479 


almost making game of Mr. Riah, or of Pubsey and Co., 
Saint Mary Axe, or of somebody: which is far from our 
intention. Mr. Riah, if you would have the kindness to 
step into the next room for a few moments while I speak 
with Mr. Lammle here, I should like to try to make terms 
with you once again before you go.” 

The old man, who had never raised his eyes during the 
whole transaction of Mr. Fledgeby’s joke, silently bowed 
and passed out by the door which Fledgeby opened for him. 
Having closed it on him, Fledgeby returned to Lammle, 
standing with his back to the bedroom fire, with one hand 
under his coat-skirts and all his whiskers in the other. 

“ Halloa! ” said Fledgeby. There’s something wrong! ” 

“ How do you know it? ” demanded Lammle. 

“ Because you show it,” replied Fledgeby in unintentional 
rhyme. 

“Well then; there is,” said Lammle; “there is some- 
thing wrong; the whole thing’s wrong.” 

“ I say! ” remonstrated Fascination very slowly, and sitting 
down with his hands on his knees to stare at his glowering 
friend with his back to the fire. 

“ I tell you, Fledgeby,” repeated Lammle, with a sweep 
of his right arm, “ the whole thing’s wrong. The game’r- 
up.” 

“ What game’s up ? ” demanded Fledgeby, as slowly as 
before, and more sternly. 

“ The game. Our game. Read that.” 

Fledgeby took a note from his extended hand and read it 
aloud. “ Alfred Lammle, Esquire. Sir: Allow Mrs. Pod- 
snap and myself to express our united sense of the polite 
attentions of Mrs. Alfred Lammle and yourself towards our 
daughter Georgiana. Allow us, also, wholly to reject them 
for the future, and to communicate our final desire that the 
two families may become entire strangers. I have the 
honour to be. Sir, your most obedient and very humble 
servant, John Podsnap.” Fledgeby looked at the three blank 
sides of this note quite as long and earnestly as at the first 
expressive side, and then looked at Lammle, who responded 
with another extensive sweep of his right arm. 

“ Whose doing is this ? ” said Fledgeby. 


480 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Impossible to imagine,” said Lammle. 

“ Perhaps,” suggested Fledgeby, after reflecting with a 
very discontented brow, “ somebody has been giving you 
a bad character.” 

“ Or you,” said Lammle, with a deeper frown. 

Mr. Fledgeby appeared to be on the verge of some muti- 
nous expressions, when his hand happened to touch his nose 
A certain remembrance connected with that feature operating 
as a timely warning, he took it thoughtfully between his 
thumb and forefinger, and pondered; Lammle meanwhile 
eyeing him with furtive eyes. 

“Well!” said Fledgeby. “This won’t improve with 
talking about. If we ever find out who did it, we’ll mark 
that person. There’s nothing more to be said, except that 
you undertook to do what circumstances prevent your doing.” 

“ And that you undertook to do what you might have 
done by this time, if you had made a prompter use of cir- 
cumstances,” snarled Lammle. 

“ Hah! That,” remarked Fledgeby, with his hands in 
the Turkish trousers, “ is a matter of opinion.” 

“ Mr. Fledgeby,” said Lammle, in a bullying tone, “ am 
I to understand that you in any way reflect upon me, or 
hint dissatisfaction with me, in this affair? ” 

“ No,” said Fledgeby; “ provided you have brought my 
promissory note in your pocket, and now hand it over.” 

Lammle produced it, not without reluctance. Fledgeby 
looked at it, identified it, twisted it up, and threw it into 
the fire. They both looked at it as it blazed, went out, and 
flew in feathery ash up the chimney. 

“ Now, Mr. Fledgeby,” Lammle said, as before; “ am I 
to understand that you in any way reflect upon me, or hint 
dissatisfaction with me, in this affair? ” 

“ No,” said Fledgeby. 

“ Finally and unreservedly no ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Fledgeby, my hand.” 

Mr. Fledgeby took it, saying, “ And if we ever find out 
who did this, we’ll mark that person. And in the most 
friendly manner, let me mention one thing more. I don’t 
know what your circumstances are, and I don’t ask. You 


LODGERS IN QUEER STREET 


481 


have sustained a loss here. Many men are liable to be in- 
volved at times, and you may be, or you may not be. But 
whatever you do, Lammle, don’t — don’t — don’t, 1 beg of 
you — ever fall into the hands of Pubsey and Co. in the next 
room, for they are grinders. Regular flayers and grinders, 
my dear Lammle,” repeated Fledgeby with a peculiar relish, 
“ and they’ll skin you by the inch, from the nape of your 
neck to the sole of your foot, and grind every inch of your 
skin to tooth-powder. You have seen what Mr. Riah is. 
Never fall into his hands, Lammle, I beg of you as a friend! ” 

Mr. Lammle, disclosing some alarm at the solemnity of 
this affectionate adjuration, demanded why the devil he ever 
should fall into the hands of Pubsey and Co. ? 

‘‘To confess the fact, I was made a little uneasy,” said 
the candid Fledgeby, “ by the manner in which that Jew 
looked at you when he heard your name. I didn’t like his 
eye. But it may have been the heated fancy of a friend. 
Of course, if you are sure that you have no personal security 
out, which you may not be quite equal to meeting, and 
which can have got into his hands, it must have been fancy. 
Still, I didn’t like his eye.” 

The brooding Lammle, with certain white dints coming 
and going in his palpitating nose, looked as if some torment- 
ing imp were pinching it. Fledgeby, watching him with a 
twitch in his mean face which did duty there for a smile, 
looked very like the tormentor who was pinching. 

“ But I mustn’t keep him waiting too long,” said Fledgeby, 
“ or he’ll revenge it on my unfortunate friend. How’s your 
very clever and agreeable wife ? She knows we have broken 
down ? ” 

“ I showed her the letter.” 

“ Very much surprised ? ” asked Fledgeby. 

“ I think she would have been more so,” answered Lammle, 
“ if there had been more go in you! ” 

“ Oh! — She lays it upon me, then ? ” 

“ Mr. Fledgeby, I will not have my words misconstrued.” 

“ Don’t break out, Lammle,” urged Fledgeby, in a sub- 
missive tone, “ because there’s no occasion. I only asked a 
question. Then she don’t lay it upon me? To ask another 
question.” 


482 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


No, sir.” 

“ Very good,” said Fledgeby, plainly seeing that she did. 

My compliments to her. Good-bye! ” 

They shook hands, and Lammle strode out pondering. 
Fledgeby saw him into the fog, and, returning to the fire and 
musing with his face to it, stretched the legs of the rose- 
coloured Turkish trousers wide apart, and meditatively bent 
his knees, as if he were going down upon them. 

“ You have a pair of whiskers, Lammle, which I never 
liked,” murmured Fledgeby, ’* and which money can’t pro- 
duce; you are boastful of your manners and your conver- 
sation; you wanted to pull my nose, and you have let me 
in for a failure, and your wife says I am the cause of it. Fll 
bowl you down. I will, though 1 have no whiskers,” here he 
rubbed the places where they were due, “ and no manners, 
and no conversation I ” 

Having thus relieved his noble mind, he collected the legs 
of the Turkish trousers, straightened himself on his knees, 
and called out to Riah in the next room, “ Halloa, you sir! ” 
At sight of the old man reentering with a gentleness mon- 
strously in contrast with the character he had given him, 
Mr. Fledgeby was so tickled again, that he exclaimed, laugh- 
ing, “ Good! Good! Upon my soul it is uncommon good! ” 

“ Now, old ’un,” proceeded Fledgeby, wdien he had had his 
laugh out, “ you’ll buy up these lots that I mark with my 
pencil — there’s a tick there, and a tick there, and a tick 
there — and I wager twopence you’ll afterwards go on squeez- 
ing those Christians like the Jew you are. Now, next you’ll 
want a cheque — or you’ll say you want it, though you’ve 
capital enough somewhere, if one only knew where, but 
you’d be peppered and salted and grdled on a gridiron before 
you’d own to it — and that cheque Fll write.” 

When he had unlocked a drawer and taken a key from 
it to open another drawer, in which was another key that 
opened another drawer, in which was another key that opened 
another drawer, in which was the cheque book; and when he 
had written the cheque; and when, reversing the key and 
drawer process, he had placed his cheque book in safety 
again; he beckoned the old man, with the folded cheque, 
to come and take it 


LODGERS IN QUEER STREET 


483 


“ Old ’un,” said Fledgeby, when the Jew had put it in his 
pocket-book, and was putting that in the breast of his outer 
garment; “ so much at present for my affairs. Now a word 
about affairs that are not exactly mine. Where is 
she?’^ 

With his hand not yet withdrawn from the breast of his 
garment, Riah started and paused. 

“ Oho! ” said Fledgeby. ‘‘ Didn’t expect it! Where have 
you hidden her? ” 

Showing that he was taken by surprise, the old man 
looked at his master with some passing confusion, which the 
master highly enjoyed. 

Is she in the house I pay rent and taxes for in Saint 
Mary Axe ? ” demanded Fledgeby. 

“ No, sir.” 

Is she in your garden up atop of that house — gone up 
to be dead, or whatever the game is ? ” asked Fledgeby. 

No, sir.” 

“ Where is she then ? ” 

Riah bent his eyes upon the ground, as if considering 
whether he could answer the question without breach of 
faith, and then silently raised them to Fledgeby’ s face, as if 
he could not. 

Come! ” said Fledgeby. “ I won’t press that just now. 
But I want to know this, and I will know this, mind you. 
What are you up to ? ” 

The old man, with an apologetic action of his head and 
hands, as not comprehending the master’s meaning, addressed 
to him a look of mute inquiry. 

“ You can’t be a gallivanting dodger,” said Fledgeby. 
“ For you’re a regular ‘ pity the sorrows,’ you know — if you 
do know any Christian rhyme — ‘ whose trembling limbs have 
borne him to’ — et cetrer. You’re one of the Patriarchs; 
you’re a shaky old card; and you can’t be in love with this 
Lizzie ? ” 

“ Oh, sir! ” expostulated Riah. Oh, sir, sir, sir! ” 

Then why,” retorted Fledgeby, with some slight tinge of 
a blush, “ don’t you out with your reason for having your 
spoon in the soup at all ? ” 

“ Sir, I will tell you the truth. But (your pardon for the 


484 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


stipulation) it is in sacred confidence; it is strictly upon 
honour.” 

“Honour too!” cried Fledgeby, with a mocking lip. 
“ Honour among Jews! Well. Cut away.” 

“ It is upon honour, sir? ” the other still stipulated, with 
respectful firmness. 

“ Oh, certainly. Honour bright,” said Fledgeby. 

The old man, never bidden to sit down, stood with an 
earnest hand laid on the back of the young man’s easy-chair. 
The young man sat looking at the fire with a face of listening 
curiosity, ready to check him off and catch him tripping. 

“ Cut away,” said Fledgeby. “ Start with your motive.” 

“ Sir, I have no motive but to help the helpless.” 

Mr. Fledgeby could only express the feelings to which this 
incredible statement gave rise in his breast, by a prodigiously 
long derisive sniff. 

“ How I came to know, and much to esteem and to re- 
spect, this damsel, I mentioned when you saw her in my 
poor garden on the house-top,” said the Jew. 

“ Did you ? ” said Fledgeby, distrustfully. “ Well, perhaps 
you did, though.” 

“ The better I knew her, the more interest I felt in her 
fortunes. They gathered to a crisis. I found her beset by 
a selfish and ungrateful brother, beset by an unacceptable 
wooer, beset by the snares of a more powerful lover, beset 
by the wiles of her own heart.” 

“ She took to one of the chaps then ? ” 

“ Sir, it was only natural that she should incline towards 
him, for he had many and great advantages. But he was 
not of her station, and to marry her was not in his mind. 
Perils were closing round her, and the circle was fast darken- 
ing, when I — being as you have said, sir, too old and broken 
to be suspected of any feeling for her but a father’s — stepped 
in, and counselled flight. I said, ‘ My daughter, there are 
times of moral danger when the hardest virtuous resolution 
to form is flight, and when the most heroic bravery is flight.’ 
She answered, she had had this in her thoughts; but whither 
to fly without help she knew not, and there were none to 
help her. I showed her there was one to help her, and it was 
I. And she is gone.” 


LODGERS IN QUEER STREET 485 

“ What did you do with her? asked Fledgeby, feeling his 
cheek. 

“ I placed her,” said the old man, “ at a distance; ” with 
a grave smooth outward sweep from one another of his two 
open hands at arm’s length; “ at a distance — among certain 
of our people, where her industry would serve her, and where 
she could hope to exercise it, unassailed from any quarter.” 

Fledgeby ’s eyes had come from the fire to notice the action 
of his hands when he said “ at a distance.” Fledgeby now 
tried (very unsuccessfully) to imitate that action, as he shook 
his head and said, “ Placed her in that direction, did you? 
Oh, you circular old dodger! ” 

With one hand across his breast and the other on the easy- 
chair, Riah, without justifying himself, waited for further 
questioning. But that it was hopeless to question him on 
that one reserved point, Fledgeby, with his small eyes too 
near together, saw full well. 

“ Lizzie,” said Fledgeby, looking at the fire again, and then 
looking up. “ Humph, Lizzie. You didn’t tell me the 
other name in your garden atop of the house. I’ll be more 
communicative with you. The other name’s Hexam.” 

Riah bent his head in assent. 

“ Look here, you sir,” said Fledgeby. “ I have a notion 
I know something of the inveigling chap, the powerful one. 
Has he anything to do with the law ? ” 

“ Nominally, I believe it his calling.” 

“ I thought so. Name anything like Lightwood ? ” 

“ Sir, not at all like.” 

“ Come, old ’un,” said Fledgeby, meeting his eyes with a 
wink, “ say the name.” 

“ Wrayburn.” 

“By Jupiter!” cried Fledgeby. “That one, is it? I 
thought it might be the other, but I never dreamt of that 
one. I shouldn’t object to your baulking either of the pair, 
dodger, for they are both conceited enough; but that one is 
as cool a customer as ever I met with. Got a beard besides, 
and presumes upon it. Well done, old ’un! Go on and 
prosper! ” 

Brightened by this unexpected commendation, Riah asked 
were there more instructions for him ? 


486 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


No,” said Fledgeby, “you may toddle now, Judah, and 
grope about on the orders you have got.” Dismissed with 
those pleasing words, the old man took his broad hat and 
staff, and left the great presence: more as if he were some 
superior creature benignantly blessing Mr. Fledgeby, than the 
poor dependant on whom he set his foot. Left alone, Mr. 
Fledgeby locked his outer door, and came back to his fire. 

“ Well done, you! ” said Fascination to himself. “ Slow, 
you may be; sure, you are! ” This he twice or thrice repeated 
with much complacency, as he again dispersed the legs of the 
Turkish trousers and bent the knees. 

“ A tidy shot that, I flatter myself,” he then soliloquised. 
“And a Jew brought down with it! Now when I heard 
the story told at Lammle’s, I didn’t make a jump at Riah. 
Not a bit of it; I got at him by degrees.” Herein he was 
quite accurate; it being his habit not to jump, or leap, or 
make an upward spring, at anything in life, but to crawl 
at everything. 

“ I got at him,” pursued Fledgeby, feeling for his whiskers, 
“ by degrees. If your Lammles or your Lightwoods had got 
at him anyhow, they would have asked him the question 
whether he hadn’t something to do with that gal’s disap- 
pearance. I knew a better way of going to work. Having 
got behind the hedge, and put him in the light, I took a 
shot at him and brought him down plump. Oh! It don’t 
count for much, being a Jew, in a match against me! ” 

Another dry twist in place of a smile, made his face crooked 
here. 

“ As to Christians,” proceeded Fledgeby, “ look out, fellow- 
Christians, particularly you that lodge in Queer Street! I 
have got the run of Queer Street now, and you shall see some 
games there. To work a lot of power over you and you not 
know it, knowing as you think yourselves, would be almost 
worth laying out money upon. But when it comes to 
squeezing a profit out of you into the bargain, it’s some- 
thing like! ” 

With this apostrophe Mr. Fledgeby appropriately proceeded 
to divest himself of his Turkish garments, and invest himself 
with Christian attire. Pending which operation, and his 
morning ablutions, and his anointing of himself with the last 


LODGERS IN QUEER STREET 


487 


infallible preparation for the production of luxuriant and 
glossy hair upon the human countenance (quacks being the 
only sages he believed in besides usurers), the murky fog 
closed about him and shut him up in its sooty embrace. If 
it had never let him out any more, the world would have 
had no irreparable loss, but could have easily replaced him 
from its stock on hand. 


CHAPTER II 


A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT 

In the evening of this same foggy day when the yellow 
window-blind of Pubsey and Co. was drawn down upon the 
day’s work, Riah the Jew once more came forth into Saint 
Mary Axe. But this time he carried no bag, and was not 
bound on his master’s affairs. He passed over London 
Bridge, and returned to the Middlesex shore by that of 
Westminster, and so, ever wading through the fog, waded to 
the doorstep of the dolls’ dressmaker. 

Miss Wren expected him. He could see her through the 
window by the light of her low fire — carefully banked up 
with damp cinders that it might last the longer and waste 
the less when she went out — sitting waiting for him in her 
bonnet. His tap at the glass roused her from the musing 
solitude in which she sat, and she came to the door to open 
it; aiding her steps with a little crutch -stick. 

“ Good evening, godmother! ” said Miss Jenny Wren. 

The old man laughed, and gave her his arm to lean on. 

“ Won’t you come in and warm yourself, godmother ? ” 
asked Miss Jenny Wren. 

“ Not if you are ready, Cinderella, my dear.” 

“Well!” exclaimed Miss Wren, delighted. “Now you 
ARE a clever old boy ! If we gave prizes at this establishment 
(but we only keep blanks), you should have the first silver 
medal, for taking me up so quick.” As she spake thus. Miss 
Wren removed the key of the house door from the keyhole 
and put it in her pocket, and then bustlingly closed the door, 
and tried it as they both stood on the step. Satisfied that her 
dwelling was safe, she drew one hand through the old man’s 
arm and prepared to ply her crutch-stick with the other. 
But the key was an instrument of such gigantic proportions, 
that before they started Riah proposed to carry it. 


A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT 489 


“ No, no, no! I’ll carry it myself,” returned Miss Wren. 
“ I’m awfully lop-sided, you know, and stowed down in 
my pocket it’ll trim the ship. To let you into a secret, god- 
mother, I wear my pocket on my high side, o’ purpose.” 

With that they began their plodding through the fog. 

“ Yes, it was truly sharp of you, godmother,” resumed 
Miss Wren with great approbation, “ to understand me. 
But, you see, you are so like the fairy godmother in the 
bright little books! You look so unlike the rest of people, 
and so much as if you had changed yourself into that shape, 
just this moment, with some benevolent object. Boh!” 
cried Miss Jenny, putting her face close to the old man’s. ” I 
can see your features, godmother, behind the beard.” 

“ Does the fancy go to my changing other objects too, 
Jenny ? ” 

‘‘Ah! That it does! If you’d only borrow my stick and 
tap this piece of pavement — this dirty stone that my foot 
taps — it would start up a coach and six. I say ! Let’s 
believe so ! ” 

“ With all my heart,” replied the good old man. 

“And I’ll tell you what I must ask you to do, godmother. 
I must ask you to be so kind as give my child a tap, and 
change him altogether. Oh, my child has been such a bad, 
bad child of late! It worries me nearly out of my wits. 
Not done a stroke of work these ten days. Has had the 
horrors, too, and fancied that four copper-coloured men in 
red wanted to throw him into a fiery furnace.” 

“ But that’s dangerous, Jenny.” 

“Dangerous, godmother? My bad child is always dan- 
gerous, more or less. He might” — here the little creature 
glanced back over her shoulder at the sky — “be setting 
the house on fire at this present moment. I don’t know who 
would have a child, for my part! It’s no use shaking him. 
I have shaken him till I have made myself giddy. ‘ Why 
don’t you mind your Commandments and honour your parent, 
you naughty old boy ? ’ I said to him all the time. But he 
only whimpered and stared at me.” 

“ What shall be changed, after him? ” asked Riah in a 
compassionately playful voice. 

“ Upon my word, godmother, I am afraid I must be selfish 


490 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


next, and get you to set me right in the back and the legs. 
It’s a little thing to you with your power, godmother, but 
it’s a great deal to poor weak aching me.” 

There was no querulous complaining in the words, but 
they were not the less touching for that. 

“ And then ? ” 

“ Yes, and then — you know, godmother. We’ll both jump 
into the coach and six and go to Lizzie. This reminds me, 
godmother, to ask you a serious question. You are as wise 
as wise can be (having been brought up by the fairies), and 
you can tell me this: Is it better to have had a good thing 
and lost it, or never to have had it ? ” 

“ Explain, goddaughter.” 

I feel so much more solitary and helpless without Lizzie 
now, than I used to feel before I knew her.” (Tears were in 
her eyes as she said so.) 

‘‘ Some beloved companionship fades out of most lives, my 
dear,” said the Jew, — “ that of a wife, and a fair daughter, 
and a son of promise, has faded out of my own life — but the 
happiness was.” 

‘‘Ah!” said Miss Wren thoughtfully, by no means con- 
vinced, and chopping the exclamation with that sharp little 
hatchet of hers; “ then I tell you what change I think you 
had better begin with, godmother. You had better change 
Is into Was and Was into Is, and keep them so.” 

“ Would that suit your case? Would you not be always 
in pain then ? ” asked the old man tenderly. 

“Right!” exclaimed Miss Wren with another chop. 
“ You have changed me wiser, godmother. — Not,” she added 
with the quaint hitch of her chin and eyes, “ that you need 
be a very wonderful godmother to do that deed.” 

Thus conversing, and having crossed Westminster Bridge, 
they traversed the ground that Riah had lately traversed, 
and new ground likewise; for, when they had recrossed the 
Thames by way of London Bridge, they struck down by the 
river and held their still foggier course that way. 

But previously, as they were going along, Jenny twisted 
her venerable friend aside to a brilliantly-lighted toy-shop 
window, and said: “ Now look at ’em. All my work! ” 

This referred to a dazzling semi-circle of dolls in all the 


A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT 491 


colours of the rainbow, who were dressed for presentation 
at court, for going to balls, for going out driving, for going 
out on horseback, for going out walking, for going to get 
married, for going to help other dolls to get married, for all 
the gay events of life. 

“ Pretty, pretty, pretty! ” said the old man with a clap of 
his hands. “ Most elegant taste.” 

“ Glad you like ’em,” returned Miss Wren, loftily. “ But 
the fun is, godmother, how I make the great ladies try my 
ilresses on. Though it’s the hardest part of my business, 
and would be, even if my back were not bad and my legs 
queer.” 

He looked at her as not understanding what she 
said. 

“ Bless you, godmother,” said Miss Wren, “ I have to scud 
about town at all hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, 
cutting out and sewing, it would be comparatively easy 
work; but it’s the trying-on by the great ladies that takes it 
out of me.” 

“ How, the trying-on ? ” asked Riah. 

“ What a mooney godmother you are, after all! ” returned 
Miss Wren. “ Look here. There’s a Drawing Room, or a 
grand day in the Park, or a Show, or a Fete, or what you 
like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and I look 
about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my 
business, I say, ‘ You’ll do, my dear! ’ and I take particular 
notice of her, and run home and cut her out and baste her. 
Then another day, I come scudding back again to try on, 
and then I take particular notice of her again. Sometimes 
she plainly seems to say, ‘ How that little creature is staring ! ’ 
and sometimes likes it and sometimes don’t, but much more 
often yes than no. All the time I am only saying to myself, 

^ I must hollow out a bit here; I must slope away there; ’ 
and I am making a perfect slave of her, with making her try 
on my doll’s dress. Evening parties are severer work for me, 
because there’s only a doorway for a full view, and what with 
hobbling among the wheels of the carriages and the legs of 
the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night. However, 
there I have ’em, just the same. When they go bobbing 
into the hall from the carriage, and catch a glimpse of my 


492 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


little physiognomy poked out from behind a policeman’s cape 
in the rain, I dare say they think I am wondering and admir- 
ing with all my eyes and heart, but they little think they’re 
only working for my dolls! There was Lady Belinda Whit- 
rose. I made her do double duty in one night. I said when 
she came out of the carriage, ‘Fow’ll do, my dear! ’ and I ran 
straight home and cut her out and basted her. Back I came 
again, and waited behind the men that called the carriages. 
Very bad night too. At last ‘ Lady Belinda Whitrose’s 
carriage! Lady Belinda Whitrose coming down!’ And I 
made her try on — oh ! and take pains about it too — before 
she got seated. That’s Lady Belinda hanging up by the waist, 
much too near the gaslight for a wax one, with her toes turned 
in.” 

When they had plodded on for some time nigh the river, 
Riah asked the way to a certain tavern called the Six Jolly 
Fellowship-Porters. Following the directions he received, 
they arrived, after two or three puzzled stoppages for con- 
sideration, and some uncertain looking about them, at the 
door of Miss Abbey Potterson’s dominions. A peep through 
the glass portion of the door revealed to them the glories of 
the bar, and Miss Abbey herself seated in state on her snug 
throne, reading the newspaper. To whom, with deference, 
they presented themselves. 

Taking her eyes off her newspaper, and pausing with a 
suspended expression of countenance, as if she must finish 
the paragraph in hand before undertaking any other business 
whatever. Miss Abbey demanded, with some slight asperity. 

Now then, what’s for you ? ” 

“Could we see Miss Potterson?” asked the old man, 
uncovering his head. 

“ You not only could, but you can and you do,” replied 
the hostess. 

“ Might we speak with you, madam ? ” 

By this time Miss Abbey’s eyes had possessed themselves 
of the small figure of Miss Jenny Wren. For the closer 
observation of which Miss Abbey laid aside her newspaper, 
rose, and looked over the half-door of the bar. The crutch- 
stick seemed to entreat for its owner leave to come in and 
rest by the fire; so Miss Abbey opened the half-door, and 











A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT 493 

said, as though replying to the crutch-stick: “ Yes, come in 
and rest by the fire.” 

“ My name is Riah,” said the old man, with courteous 
action, “ and my avocation is in London city. This, my young 
companion ” 

“ Stop a bit,” interposed Miss Wren. “ I’ll give the lady 
my card.” She produced it from her pocket with an air, 
after struggling with the gigantic door-key which had got 
upon the top of it and kept it down. Miss Abbey, with 
manifest tokens of astonishment, took the diminutive docu- 
ment, and found it to run concisely thus: — 


Miss JENNY WREN, 
dolls’ dressmaker. 


Dolls attended at their own residences. 


LudI ” exclaimed Miss Potterson, staring. And dropped 
the card. 

“ We take the liberty of coming, my young companion 
and I, madam,” said Riah, “ on behalf of Lizzie Hexam.” 

Miss Potterson was stooping to loosen the bonnet-strings 
of the dolls’ dressmaker. She looked round rather angrily, 
and said: “ Lizzie Hexam is a very proud young woman.” 

“ She would be so proud,” returned Riah, dexterously, “ to 
stand well in your good opinion, that before she quitted 
London for ” 

“ For where, in the name of the Cape of Good Hope? ” 
asked Miss Potterson, as though supposing her to have 
emigrated. 

“ For the country,” was the cautious answer, — “ she made 
us promise to come and show you a paper, which she left in 
our hands for that special purpose. I am an unserviceable 
friend of hers, who began to know her after her departure 
from this neighbourhood. She has been for some time living 
with my young companion, and has been a helpful and a 
comfortable friend to her. Much needed, madam,” he added, 


494 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


in a lower voice. “ Believe me; if you knew all, much 
needed.” 

“ I can believe that,” said Miss Abbey, with a softening 
glance at the little creature. 

“ And if it’s proud to have a heart that never hardens, 
and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts,” 
Miss Jenny struck in, flushed, “ she is proud. And if it’s 
not, she is not.” 

Her set purpose of contradicting Miss Abbey point blank 
was so far from offending that dread authority as to 
elicit a gracious smile. “ You do right, child,” said Miss 
Abbey, “ to speak well of those who deserve well of 
you.” 

“ Right or wrong,” muttered Miss Wren, inaudibly, with 
a visible hitch of her chin, ‘‘ I mean to do it, and you may 
make up your mind to that, old lady.” 

“ Here is the paper, madam,” said the Jew, delivering into 
Miss Potterson’s hands the original document drawn up by 
Rokesmith, and signed by Riderhood. “ Will you please to 
read it ? ” 

“ But first of all,” said Miss Abbey, “ — did you ever taste 
shrub, child ? ” 

Miss Wren shook her head. 

“ Should you like to ? ” 

“ Should if it’s good,” returned Miss Wren. 

“ You shall try. And, if you find it good. I’ll mix some 
for you with hot water. Put your poor little feet on the 
fender. It’s a cold, cold night, and the fog clings so.” As 
Miss Abbey helped her to turn her chair, her loosened 
bonnet dropped on the floor. “ Why, what lovely hair! ” 
cried Miss Abbey. “ And enough to make wigs for all the 
dolls in the world. What a quantity! ” 

“Call that Si quantity?” returned Miss Wren. “Poof! 
What do you say to the rest of it ? ” As she spoke, she 
untied a band, and the golden stream fell over herself and 
over the chair, and flowed down to the ground. Miss 
Abbey’s admiration seemed to increase her perplexity. She 
beckoned the Jew towards her, as she reached down the 
shrub-bottle from its niche, and whispered: 

“ Child, or woman ? ” 


A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT 495 


“ Child in years,” was the answer; “ woman in self- 
reliance and trial.” 

“ You are talking about Me, good people,” thought Miss 
Jenny, sitting in her golden bower, warming her feet. “ I 
can’t hear what you say, but I know your tricks and your 
manners ! ” 

The shrub, when tasted from a spoon, perfectly harmonis- 
ing with Miss Jenny’s palate, a judicious amount was mixed 
by Miss Potterson’s skilful hands, whereof Riah too partook. 
After this preliminary. Miss Abbey read the document; and, 
as often as she raised her eyebrows in so doing, the watchful 
Miss Jenny accompanied the action with an expressive and 
emphatic sip of the shrub and water. 

“As far as this goes,” said Miss Abbey Potterson, when 
she had read it several times, and thought about it, “ it 
proves (what didn’t much need proving) that Rogue Rider- 
hood is a villain. I have my doubts whether he is not the 
villain who solely did the deed ; but I have no expectation 
of those doubts ever being cleared up now. I believe I did 
Lizzie’s father wrong, but never Lizzie’s self; because, when 
things were at the worst I trusted her, had perfect confidence 
in her, and tried to persuade her to come to me for a refuge. 
I am very sorry to have done a man wrong, particularly 
when it can’t be undone. Be kind enough to let Lizzie know 
what I say; not forgetting that if she will come to the Porters, 
after all, bygones being bygones, she will find a home at the 
Porters, and a friend at the Porters. She knows Miss Abbey 
of old, remind her, and she knows what-like the home, and 
what-like the friend, is likely to turn out. I am generally 
short and sweet — or short and sour, according as it may be 
and as opinions vary — ” remarked Miss Abbey, “ and that’s 
about all I have got to say, and enough too.” 

But before the shrub and water was sipped out. Miss Abbey 
bethought herself that she would like to keep a copy of the 
paper by her. “ It’s not long, sir,” said she to Riah, “ and 
perhaps you wouldn’t mind just jotting it down.” The old 
man willingly put on his spectacles, and, standing at the 
little desk in the corner where Miss Abbey filed her receipts 
and kept her sample phials (customers’ scores were inter- 
dicted by the strict administration of the Porters), wrote out 


496 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


the copy in a fair round character. As he stood there, doing 
his methodical penmanship, his ancient scribe-like figure 
intent upon the work, and the little dolls’ dressmaker sitting 
in her golden bower before the fire. Miss Abbey had her 
doubts whether she had not dreamed those two rare figures 
into the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowships, and might not 
wake with a nod next moment and find them gone. 

Miss Abbey had twice made the experiment of shutting 
her eyes and opening them again, still finding the figures 
there, when, dream-like, a confused hubbub arose in the 
public room. As she started up, and they all three looked 
at one another, it became a noise of clamouring voices and 
of the stir of feet; then all the windows were heard to be 
hastily thrown up, and shouts and cries came floating into 
the house from the river. A moment more, and Bob Gliddery 
came clattering along the passage, with the noise of all the 
nails in his boots condensed into every separate nail. 

“ What is it? ” asked Miss Abbey. 

“ It’s summut run down in the fog, ma’am,” answered 
Bob. “ There’s ever so many people in the river.” 

“ Tell ’em to put on all the kettles! ” cried Miss Abbey. 
“ See that the boiler’s full. Get a bath out. Hang some 
blankets to the fire. Heat some stone bottles. Have your 
senses about you, you girls down-stairs, and use ’em.” 

While Miss Abbey partly delivered these directions to 
Bob — whom she seized by the hair, and whose head she 
knocked against the wall, as a general injunction to vigilance 
and presence of mind — and partly hailed the kitchen with 
them — the company in the public room, jostling one another, 
rushed out to the causeway, and the outer noise in- 
creased. 

“ Come and look,” said Miss Abbey to her visitors. They 
all three hurried to the vacated public room, and passed by 
one of the windows into the wooden verandah overhanging 
the river. 

” Does anybody down there know what has happened? ” 
demanded Miss Abbey, in her voice of authority. 

“ It’s a steamer. Miss Abbey,” cried one blurred figure in 
the fog. 

“ It always is a steamer. Miss Abbey,” cried another. 


A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT 497 

‘‘ Them’s her lights, Miss Abbey, wot you see a-blinking 
yonder,” cried another. 

“ She’s a-blowing off her steam, Miss Abbey, and that’s 
what makes the fog and the noise worse, don’t you see ? ” ex- 
claimed another. 

Boats were putting off, torches were lighting up, people 
were rushing tumultuously to the water’s edge. Some man 
fell in with a splash, and was pulled out again with a roar 
of laughter. The drags were called for. A cry for the life- 
buoy passed from mouth to mouth. It was impossible to 
make out what was going on upon the river, for every boat 
that put off sculled into the fog and was lost to view at a boat’s 
length. Nothing was clear but that the unpopular steamer 
was assailed with reproaches on all sides. She was the 
Murderer, bound for Gallows Bay; she was the Manslaugh- 
terer, bound for Penal Settlement; her captain ought to be 
tried for his life; her crew ran down men in row-boats with 
a relish; she mashed up Thames lightermen with her 
paddles; she fired property with her funnels; she always 
was, and she always would be, wreaking destruction upon 
somebody or something, after the manner of all her kind. 
The whole bulk of the fog teemed with such taunts, uttered 
in tones of universal hoarseness. All the while the steamer’s 
lights moved spectrally a very little, as she lay to, waiting 
the upshot of whatever accident had happened. Now she 
began burning blue-lights. These made a luminous patch 
about her, as if she had set the fog on fire, and in the patch — 
the cries changing their note, and becoming more fitful and 
more excited — shadows of men and boats could be seen 
moving, while voices shouted: “There!” “There again!” 
“ A couple more strokes ahead! ” “ Hurrah! ” “ Look out! ” 
“ Hold on! ” “ Haul in! ” and the like. Lastly, with a few 
tumbling clots of blue fire, the night closed in dark again, the 
wheels of the steamer were heard revolving, and her lights 
glided smoothly away in the direction of the sea. 

It appeared to Miss Abbey and her two companions that 
a considerable time had been thus occupied. There was now 
as eager a set towards the shore beneath the house as there 
had been from it; and it was only on the first boat of the 
rush coming in that it was known what had occurred. 


498 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ If that’s Tom Tootle,” Miss Abbey made proclamation, 
in her most commanding tones, “ let him instantly come 
underneath here.” 

The submissive Tom complied, attended by a crowd. 

“ What is it. Tootle? ” demanded Miss Abbey. 

It’s a foreign steamer. Miss, run down a wherry.” 

How many in the wherry? ” 

“ One man, Miss Abbey.” 

“Found?” 

“ Yes. He’s been under water a long time. Miss; but 
they’ve grappled up the body.” 

“ Let ’em bring it here. You, Bob Gliddery, shut the 
house door and stand by it on the inside, and don’t you open 
till I tell you. Any police down there ? ” 

“ Here, Miss Abbey,” was the official rejoinder. 

“ After they have brought the body in, keep the crowd out, 
will you ? And help Bob Gliddery to shut ’em out.” 

“ All right. Miss Abbey.” 

The autocratic landlady withdrew into the house with Riah 
and Miss Jenny, and disposed those forces, one on either side 
of her, within the half-door of the bar, as behind a breastwork. 

“You two stand close here,” said Miss Abbey, “ and you’ll 
come to no hurt, and see it brought in. Bob, you stand by 
the door.” 

That sentinel, smartly giving his rolled shirt-sleeves an 
extra and a final tuck on his shoulders, obeyed. 

Sound of advancing voices, sound of advancing steps. 
Shuffie and talk without. Momentary pause. Two peculiarly 
blunt knocks or pokes at the door, as if the dead man arriving 
on his back were striking at it with the soles of his motion- 
less feet. 

“ That’s the stretcher, or the shutter, whichever of the 
two they are carrying,” said Miss Abbey, with experienced 
ear. “ Open, you Bob! ” 

Door opened. Heavy tread of laden men. A halt. A 
rush. Stoppage of rush. Door shut. Baffled hoots from the 
vexed souls of disappointed outsiders. 

“Come on, men!” said Miss Abbey; for so potent was 
she with her subjects that even then the bearers awaited her 
permission. “ First floor.” 


A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT 499 

The entry being low, and the staircase being low, they so 
took up the burden they had set down, as to carry that low. 
The recumbent figure, in passing, lay hardly as high as the 
half-door. 

Miss Abbey started back at sight of it. “ Why, good 
God ! ” said she, turning to her two companions, “ that’s the 
very man who made the declaration we have just had in our 
hands. That’s Riderhood ! ” 


CHAPTER III 


THE SAME RESPECTED FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS THAN 
ONE 

In sooth, it is Riderhood and no other, or it is the outer 
husk and shell of Riderhood and no other, that is borne into 
Miss Abbey’s first-floor bedroom. Supple to twist and turn as 
the Rogue has ever been, he is sufficiently rigid now; and not 
without much shuffling of attendant feet, and tilting of his 
bier this way and that way, and peril even of his sliding off 
it and being tumbled in a heap over the balustrades, can he 
be got up-stairs. 

“ Fetch a doctor,” quoth Miss Abbey. And then, “ Fetch 
his daughter.” On both of which errands quick messengers 
depart. 

The doctor-seeking messenger meets the doctor halfway, 
coming under convoy of police. Doctor examines the dank 
carcase, and pronounces, not hopefully, that it is worth while 
trying to reanimate the same. All the best means are at once 
in action, and everybody present lends a hand, and a heart 
and soul. No one has the least regard for the man: with 
them all, he has been an object of avoidance, suspicion, and 
aversion; but the spark of life within him is curiously sepa- 
rable from himself now, and they have a deep interest in it, 
probably because it is life, and they are living and must die. 

In answer to the doctor’s inquiry how did it happen, and 
was any one to blame, Tom Tootle gives in his verdict, 
unavoidable accident and no one to blame but the sufferer. 
“ He was slinking about in his boat,” says Tom, “ which 
slinking were, not to speak ill of the dead, the manner of 
the man, when he come right athwart the steamer’s bows 
and she cut him in two.” Mr. Tootle is so far figurative, 
touching the dismemberment, as that he means the boat, and 
not the man. For the man lies whole before them. 


THE SAME FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS 


501 


Captain Joey, the bottle-nosed regular customer in the 
glazed hat, is a pupil of the much-respected old school, and 
(having insinuated himself into the chamber, in the execution 
of the important service of carrying the drowned man’s neck- 
kerchief) favours the doctor with a sagacious old-scholastic 
suggestion that the body should be hung up by the heels, 
“ sim’lar,” says Captain Joey, “ to mutton in a butcher’s 
shop,” and should then, as a particularly choice manoeuvre 
for promoting easy respiration, be rolled upon casks. These 
scraps of the wisdom of the Captain’s ancestors are received 
with such speechless indignation by Miss Abbey, that she 
instantly seizes the Captain by the collar, and without a 
single word ejects him, not presuming to remonstrate, from 
the scene. 

There then remain, to assist the doctor and Tom, only 
those three other regular customers. Bob Glamour, William 
Williams, and Jonathan (family name of the latter, if any, 
unknown to mankind), who are quite enough. Miss Abbey 
having looked in to make sure that nothing is wanted, de- 
scends to the bar, and there awaits the result, with the gentle 
Jew and Miss Jenny Wren. 

If you are not gone for good, Mr. Riderhood, it would be 
something to know where you are hiding at present. This 
flabby lump of mortality that we work so hard at with such 
patient perseverance, yields no sign of you. If you are gone 
for good. Rogue, it is very solemn, and if you are coming 
back, it is hardly less so. Nay, in the suspense and mystery 
of the latter question, involving that of where you may be 
now, there is a solemnity even added to that of death, making 
us who are in attendance alike afraid to look on you and to 
look off you, and making those below start at the least sound 
of a creaking plank in the floor. 

Stay! Did that eyelid tremble? So the doctor, breathing 
low, and closely watching, asks himself. 

No. 

Did that nostril twitch ? 

No. 

This artificial respiration ceasing, do I feel any faint flutter 
under my hand upon the chest ? 

No. 


502 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Over and over again No. No. But try over and over 
again, nevertheless. 

See! A token of life! An indubitable token of life! The 
spark may smoulder and go out, or it may glow and expand, 
but see! The four rough fellows seeing, shed tears. Neither 
Riderhood in this world, nor Riderhood in the other, could 
draw tears from them; but a striving human soul between 
the two can do it easily. 

He is struggling to come back. Now he is almost here, 
now he is far away again. Now he is struggling harder to 
get back. And yet — like us all, when we swoon — like us 
all, every day of our lives when we wake — he is instinctively 
unwilling to be restored to the consciousness of this existence, 
and would be left dormant, if he could. 

Bob Gliddery returns with Pleasant Riderhood, who 
was out when sought for, and hard to find. She has a shawl 
over her head, and her first action, when she takes it oft‘ 
weeping, and curtseys to Miss Abbey, is to wind her hair up. 

‘‘ Thank you. Miss Abbey, for having father here.” 

“I am bound to say, girl, I didn’t know who it was,” 
returns Miss Abbey; “ but I hope it would have been pretty 
much the same if I had known.” 

Poor Pleasant, fortified with a sip of brandy, is ushered 
into the first-floor chamber. She could not express much 
sentiment about her father if she were called upon to pro- 
nounce his funeral oration, but she has a greater tenderness 
for him than he ever had for her, and crying bitterly when 
she sees him stretched unconscious, asks the doctor with 
clasped hands: “Is there no hope, sir? Oh, poor father! 
Is poor father dead ? ” 

To which the doctor, on one knee beside the body, busy 
and watchful, only rejoins without looking round: “Now, 
my girl, unless you have the self-command to be perfectly 
quiet, I cannot allow you to remain in the room.” 

Pleasant, consequently, wipes her eyes with her back-hair, 
which is in fresh need of being wound up, and having got it 
out of the way, watches with terrified interest all that goes 
on. Her natural woman’s aptitude soon renders her able to 
give a little help. Anticipating the doctor’s want of this or 
that, she quietly has it ready for him, and so by degrees is 


THE SAME FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS 503 

intrusted with the charge of supporting her father’s head 
upon her arm. 

It is something so new to Pleasant to see her father an 
object of sympathy and interest, to find any one very willing 
to tolerate his society in this world, not to say pressingly 
and soothingly entreating him to belong to it, that it gives 
her a sensation she never experienced before. Some hazy 
idea that if affairs could remain thus for a long time it would 
be a respectable change, floats in her mind. Also some vague 
idea that the old evil is drowned out of him, and that if he 
should happily come back to resume his occupation of the 
empty form that lies upon the bed, his spirit will be altered. 
In which state of mind she kisses the stony lips, and quite 
believes that the impassive hand she chafes will revive a 
tender hand, if it revive ever. 

Sweet delusion for Pleasant Riderhood. But they minister 
to him with such extraordinary interest, their anxiety is so 
keen, their vigilance is so great, their excited joy grows so 
intense as the signs of life strengthen, that how can she 
resist it, poor thing! And now he begins to breathe naturally, 
and he stirs, and the doctor declares him to have come back 
from that inexplicable journey where he stopped on the dark 
road, and to be here. 

Tom Tootle, who is nearest to the doctor when he says 
this, grasps the doctor fervently by the hand. Bob Glamour, 
William Williams, and Jonathan of the no surname, all 
shake hands with one another round, and with the doctor 
too. Bob Glamour blows his nose, and Jonathan of the no 
surname is moved to do likewise, but lacking a pocket-hand- 
kerchief, abandons that outlet for his emotion. Pleasant 
sheds tears deserving her own name, and her sweet delusion 
is at its height. 

There is intelligence in his eyes. He wants to ask a ques- 
tion. He wonders where he is. Tell him. 

“ Father, you were run down on the river, and are at Miss 
Abbey Potterson’s.” 

Pie stares at his daughter, stares all around him, closes his 
eyes, and lies slumbering on her arm. 

The short-lived delusion begins to fade. The low, bad, 
unimp ressible face is coming up from the depths of the river, 


504 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


or what other depths, to the surface again. As he grows 
warm, the doctor and the four men cool. As his lineaments 
soften with life, their faces and their hearts harden to him. 

“ He will do now,” says the doctor, washing his hands, 
and looking at the patient with growing disfavour. 

Many a better man,” moralises Tom Tootle, with a 
gloomy shake of the head, “ ain’t had his luck.” 

“ It’s to be hoped he’ll make a better use of his life,” says 
Bob Glamour, “ than I expect he will.” 

“ Or than he done afore! ” adds William Williams. 

“But no, not he!” says Jonathan of the no surname, 
clinching the quartette. 

They speak in a low tone because of his daughter, but she 
sees that they have all drawn off, and that they stand in a 
group at the other end of the room, shunning him. It would 
be too much to suspect them of being sorry that he didn’t 
die when he had done so much towards it, but they clearly 
wish that they had had a better subject to bestow their 
pains on. Intelligence is conveyed to Miss Abbey in the 
bar, who reappears on the scene, and contemplates from a 
distance, holding whispered discourse with the doctor. The 
spark of life was deeply interesting while it was in abeyance, 
but now that it has got established in Mr. Riderhood, there 
appears to be a general desire that circumstances had ad- 
mitted of its being developed in anybody else, rather than 
that gentleman. 

“However,” says Miss Abbey, cheering them up, “you 
have done your duty like good and true men, and you had 
better come down and take something at the expense of the 
Porters.” 

This they all do, leaving the daughter watching the father. 
To whom, in their absence. Bob Gliddery presents himself. 

“His gills look rum; don’t they? ” says Bob, after in- 
specting the patient. 

Pleasant faintly nods. 

“ His gills ’ll look rummer when he wakes; won’t they? ” 
says Bob. 

Pleasant hopes not. Why? 

“ When he finds himself here, you know,” Bob ex^plains. 
“ ’Cause Miss Abbey forbid him the house and ordered him 


THE SAME FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS 505 

out of it. But what you may call the Fates ordered him into 
it again. Which is rumness: ain’t it? ” 

“ He wouldn’t have come here of his own accord,” returns 
poor Pleasant, with an effort at a little pride. 

“ No,” retorts Bob. ‘‘ Nor he wouldn’t have been let in if 
he had.” 

The short delusion is quite dispelled now. As plainly as 
she sees on her arm the old father, unimproved. Pleasant 
sees that everybody there will cut him when he recovers 
consciousness. “I’ll take him away ever so soon as I can,” 
thinks Pleasant with a sigh; “ he’s best at home.” 

Presently they all return, and wait for him to become con- 
scious that they will all be glad to get rid of him. Some 
clothes are got together for him to wear, his own being sat- 
urated with water, and his present dress being composed 
of blankets. 

Becoming more and more uncomfortable, as though the 
prevalent dislike were finding him out somewhere in his 
sleep and expressing itself to him, the patient at last opens 
his eyes wide, and is assisted by his daughter to sit up in bed. 

“ Well, Riderhood,” says the doctor, “ how do you feel? ” 

He replies gruffly, “ Nothing to boast on.” Having, in 
fact, returned to life in an uncommonly sulky state. 

“ I don’t mean to preach; but I hope,” says the doctor, 
gravely shaking his head, “ that this escape may have a good 
effect upon you, Riderhood.” 

The patient’s discontented growl of a reply is not intel- 
ligible; his daughter, however, could interpret, if she would, 
that what he says is he “ don’t want no Poll Parroting.” 

Mr. Riderhood next demands his shirt; and draws it on 
over his head (with his daughter’s help) exactly as if he had 
just had a Fight. 

“ Warn’t it a steamer? ” he pauses to ask her. 

“Yes, father.” 

“I’ll have the law on her, bust her! and make her pay 
for it.” 

He then buttons his linen very moodily, twice or thrice 
stopping to examine his arms and hands, as if to see what 
punishment he has received in the Fight. He then doggedly 
demands his other garments, and slowly gets them on, with 


506 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


an appearance of great malevolence towards his late opponent 
and all the spectators. He has an impression that his nose 
is bleeding, and several times draws the back of his hand 
across it, and looks for the result, in a pugilistic manner, 
greatly strengthening that incongruous resemblance. 

‘‘ Where’s my fur cap ? ” he asks in a surly voice, when 
he has shuffled his clothes on. 

“ In the river,’' somebody rejoins. 

And warn’t there no honest man to pick it up? O’ 
course there was though, and to cut off with it arterwards. 
You are a rare lot, all on you.” 

Thus, Mr. Riderhood : taking from the hands of his daugh- 
ter, with special ill-will, a lent cap, and grumbling as he 
pulls it down over his ears. Then, getting on his un- 
steady legs, leaning heavily upon her, and growling “ Hold 
still, can’t you? What! You must be a-staggering next, 
must you ? ” he takes his departure out of the ring in which 
he has had that little tum-up with Death. 





CHAPTER IV 


A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAT 

Mr. and Mrs. Wilfer had seen a full quarter of a hundred 
more anniversaries of their wedding-day than Mr. and Mrs. 
Lammle had seen of theirs, but they still celebrated the 
occasion in the bosom of their family. Not that these cele- 
brations ever resulted in anything particularly agreeable, 
or that the family was ever disappointed by that circum- 
stance on account of having looked forward to the return 
of the auspicious day with sanguine anticipations of enjoy- 
ment. It was kept morally, rather as a Fast than a Feast, 
enabling Mrs. Wilfer to hold a sombre darkling state, which 
exhibited that impressive woman in her choicest colours. 

The noble lady's condition on these delightful occasions 
was one compounded of heroic endurance and heroic forgive- 
ness. Lurid indications of the better marriages she might 
have made shone athwart the awful gloom of her composure, 
and fitfully revealed the cherub as a little monster unaccount- 
ably favoured by Heaven, who had possessed himself of a 
blessing for which many of his superiors had sued and con- 
tended in vain. So firmly had this his position towards his 
treasure become established, that when the anniversary 
arrived, it always found him in an apologetic state. It is 
not impossible that his modest penitence may have even 
gone the length of sometimes severely reproving him for that 
he ever took the liberty of making so exalted a character 
his wife. 

As for the children of the union, their experience of these 
festivals had been sufliciently uncomfortable to lead them 
annually to wish, when out of their tenderest years, either 
that Ma had married somebody else instead of much-teased 
Pa, or that Pa had married somebody else instead of Ma. 


508 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


When there came to be but two sisters left at home, the 
daring mind of Bella on the next of these occasions scaled 
the height of wondering with droll vexation, “ what on earth 
Pa ever could have seen in Ma, to induce him to make 
such a little fool of himself as to ask her to have him.” 

The revolving year now bringing the day round in its 
orderly sequence, Bella arrived in the BofBn chariot to assist 
at the celebration. It was the family custom when the day 
recurred, to sacrifice a pair of fowls on the altar of Hymen; 
and Bella had sent a note beforehand, to intimate that she 
would bring the votive offering with her. So Bella and the 
fowls, by the united energies of two horses, two men, four 
wheels, and a plum-pudding carriage dog with as uncomfort- 
able a collar on as if he had been George the Fourth, were 
deposited at the door of the parental dwelling. They were 
there received by Mrs. Wilfer in person, whose dignity on 
this, as on most special occasions, was heightened by a 
mysterious toothache. 

“ I shall not require the carriage at night,” said Bella. 
“ I shall walk back.” 

The male domestic of Mrs. Boffin touched his hat, and in 
the act of departure had an awful glare bestowed upon him 
by Mrs. Wilfer, intended to carry deep into his audacious 
soul the assurance that, whatever his private suspicions 
might be, male domestics in livery were no rarity there. 

“ Well, dear Ma,” said Bella, “ and how do you do ? ” 

“ I am as well, Bella,” replied Mrs. Wilfer, “ as can be 
expected.” 

“ Dear me, Ma,” said Bella, “ you talk as if one was just 
born! ” 

“ That’s exactly what Ma has been doing,” interposed 
Lavvy, over the maternal shoulder, “ ever since we got up 
this morning. It’s all very well to laugh, Bella, but any- 
thing more exasperating it is impossible to conceive.” 

Mrs. Wilfer, with a look too full of majesty to be accom- 
panied by any words, attended both her daughters to the 
kitchen, where the sacrifice was to be prepared. 

“ Mr. Rokesmith,” said she, resignedly, “ has been so 
polite as to place his sitting-room at our disposal to-day. 
You will therefore, Bella, be entertained in the humble 


A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY 


509 


abode of your parents, so far in accordance with your present 
style of living, that there will be a drawing-room for your 
reception as well as a dining-room. Your papa invited Mr. 
Rokesmith to partake of our lowly fare. In excusing him- 
self on account of a particular engagement, he offered the 
use of his apartment.'^ 

Bella happened to know that he had no engagement out 
of his own room at Mr. Boffin’s, but she approved of his stay- 
ing away. “We should only have put one another out of 
countenance,” she thought, “ and we do that quite often 
enough as it is.” 

Yet she had sufficient curiosity about his room, to run up 
to it with the least possible delay, and make a close inspec- 
tion of its contents. It was tastefully though economically 
furnished, and very neatly arranged. There were shelves 
and stands of books, English, French, and Italian; and in a 
portfolio on the writing-table there were sheets upon sheets 
of memoranda and calculations in figures, evidently referring 
to the Boffin property. On that table also, carefully backed 
with canvas, varnished, mounted, and rolled like a map, was 
the placard descriptive of the murdered man who had come 
from afar to be her husband. She shrank from this ghostly 
surprise, and felt quite frightened as she rolled and tied it 
up again. Peeping about here and there, she came upon a 
print, a graceful head of a pretty woman, elegantly framed, 
hanging in the corner by the easy-chair. “ Oh, indeed, 
sir! ” said Bella, after stopping to ruminate before it. “ Oh, 
indeed, sir! I fancy I can guess whom you think that's 
like. But I’ll tell you what it’s much more like — your 
impudence!” Having said which she decamped: not solely 
because she was offended, but because there was nothing 
else to look at. 

“ Now, Ma,” said Bella, reappearing in the kitchen with 
some remains of a blush, “ you and Lavvy think magnificent 
me fit for nothing, but I intend to prove the contrary. I 
mean to be Cook to-day.” 

“ Hold ! ” rejoined her majestic mother. “ I cannot per- 
mit it. Cook, in that dress! ” 

“ As for my dress, Ma,” returned Bella, merrily searching 
in a dresser-drawer, “ I mean to apron it and towel it all 


510 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


over the front; and as to permission, I mean to do with- 
out.” 

“ You cook? ” said Mrs. Wilfer. “ You who never cooked 
when you were at home ? ” 

“ Yes, Ma,” returned Bella; “ that is precisely the state 
of the case.” 

She girded herself with a white apron, and busily with 
knots and pins contrived a bib to it, coming close and tight 
under her chin, as if it had caught her round the neck to 
kiss her. Over this bib her dimples looked delightful, and 
under it her pretty figure not less so. Now, Ma,” said 
Bella, pushing back her hair from her temples with both 
hands, ‘‘what’s first?” 

“ First,” returned Mrs. Wilfer solemnly, “ if you persist 
in what I cannot but regard as conduct utterly incompatible 
with the equipage in which you arrived ” 

(“ Which I do, Ma.”) 

“ First, then, you put the fowls down to the fire.” 

“To — be — sure!” cried Bella; “and flour them, and 
twirl them round, and there they go!” sending them spin- 
ning at a great rate. “ What’s next, Ma ? ” 

“Next,” said Mrs. Wilfer with a wave of her gloves, ex- 
pressive of abdication under protest from the culinary throne, 

“ I would recommend examination of the bacon in the sauce- 
pan on the fire, and also of the potatoes by the application 
of a fork. Preparation of the greens will further become / 
necessary if you persist in this unseemly demeanour.” 

“As of course I do, Ma.” 

Persisting, Bella gave her attention to one thing and for- 
got the other, and gave her attention to the other and forgot 
the third, and remembering the third was distracted by 
the fourth, and made amends whenever she went wrong 
by giving the unfortunate fowls an extra spin, which made 
their chance of ever getting cooked exceedingly doubtful. 
But it was pleasant cookery too. Meantime Miss Lavinia, 
oscillating between the kitchen and the opposite room, pre- 
pared the dining-table in the latter chamber. This office she 
(always doing her household spiriting with unwillingness) 
performed in a startling series of whisks and bumps; laying 
the table-cloth as if she were raising the wind, putting down 


A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY 511 

the glasses and salt-cellars as if she were knocking at the 
door, and clashing the knives and forks in a skirmishing 
manner suggestive of hand-to-hand conflict. 

“ Look at Ma,” whispered Lavinia to Bella when this was 
done, and they stood over the roasting fowls. “ If one was 
the most dutiful child in existence (of course on the whole 
one hopes one is), isn’t she enough to make one want to 
poke her with something wooden, sitting there bolt upright 
in the corner? ” 

“ Only suppose,” returned Bella, “ that poor Pa was to sit 
bolt upright in another corner.” 

“ My dear, he couldn’t do it,” said Lavvy. Pa would 
loll directly. But indeed I do not believe there ever was 
any human creature who could keep so bolt upright as Ma, 
or put such an amount of aggravation into one back! What’s 
the matter, Ma? Ain’t you well, Ma?” 

“ Doubtless I am very well,” returned Mrs. Wilfer, turn- 
ing her eyes upon her youngest born with scornful fortitude. 
“ What should be the matter with me? ” 

“You don’t seem very brisk, Ma,” retorted Lavvy the 
bold. 

“Brisk?” repeated her parent. “Brisk? Whence the 
low expression, Lavinia? If I am uncomplaining, if I am 
silently contented with my lot, let that suffice for my family.” 

“ Well, Ma,” returned Lavvy, “ since you will force it out 
of me, I must respectfully take leave to say that your family 
are no doubt under the greatest obligations to you for having 
an annual toothache on your wedding-day, and that it’s 
very disinterested in you, and an immense blessing to them. 
Still, on the whole, it is possible to be too boastful even of 
that boon.” 

“ You incarnation of sauciness,” said Mrs. Wilfer, “ do 
you speak like that to me? On this day of all days in the 
year? Pray do you know what would have become of you, 
if I had not bestowed my hand upon R. W., your father, on 
this day ? ” 

“ No, Ma,” replied Lavvy, “ I really do not; and, with 
the greatest respect for your abilities and information, I very 
much doubt if you do either.” 

Whether or no the sharp vigour of this sally on a weak 


512 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


point of Mrs. Wilfer’s entrenchments might have routerl 
that heroine for the time, is rendered uncertain by the 
arrival of a flag of truce in the person of Mr. George Samp- 
son: bidden to the feast as a friend of the family, whose af- 
fections were now understood to be in course of transference 
from Bella to Lavinia, and whom Lavinia kept — possibly 
in remembrance of his bad taste in having overlooked her 
in the first instance — under a course of stinging discipline. 

“ I congratulate you, Mrs. Wilfer,’’ said Mr. George 
Sampson, who had meditated this neat address while com- 
ing along, “ on the day.” Mrs. Wilfer thanked him with 
a magnanimous sigh, and again became an unresisting prey 
to that inscrutable toothache. 

‘‘ I am surprised,” said Mr. Sampson feebly, “ that Miss 
Bella condescends to cook.” 

Here Miss Lavinia descended on the ill-starred young 
gentleman with a crushing supposition that at all events it 
was no business of his. This disposed of Mr. Sampson in 
a melancholy retirement of spirit, until the cherub arrived, 
whose amazement at the lovely woman’s occupation was 
great. 

However, she persisted in dishing the dinner as w’^ell as 
cooking it, and then sat down, bibless and apronless, to 
partake of it as an illustrious guest: Mrs. Wilfer first re- 
sponding to her husband’s cheerful “For what we are about 
to receive — ” with a sepulchral Amen, calculated to cast a 
damp upon the stoutest appetite. 

“But what,” said Bella, as she watched the carving of the 
fowls, “makes them pink inside, I wonder. Pa! Is it the 
breed ? ” 

“ No, I don’t think it’s the breed, my dear,” returned Pa. 
“ I rather think it is because they are not done.” 

“ They ought to be,” said Bella. 

“ Yes, I am aware they ought to be, my dear,” rejoined her 
father, “ but they — ain’t.” 

So the gridiron was put in requisition, and the good- 
tempered cherub, who was often as un-cherubically em- 
ployed in his own family as if he had been in the employ- 
ment of some of the Old Masters, undertook to grill the 
fowls. Indeed, except in respect of staring about him (a 


A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY 


513 


branch of the public service to which the pictorial cherub is 
much addicted), this domestic cherub discharged as many 
odd functions as his prototype; with the difference, say, 
that he performed with a blacking-brush on the family’s 
boots, instead of performing on enormous wind instruments 
and double-basses, and that he conducted himself with 
cheerful alacrity to much useful purpose, instead of fore- 
shortening himself in the air with the vaguest intentions. 

Bella helped him with his supplemental cookery, and 
made him very happy, but put him in mortal terror too by 
asking him when they sat down at table again, how he sup- 
posed they cooked fowls at the Greenwich dinners, and 
whether he believed they really were such pleasant dinners 
as people said ? His secret winks and nods of remonstrance, 
in reply, made the mischievous Bella laugh until she choked, 
and then Lavinia was obliged to slap her on the back, and 
then she laughed the more. 

But her mother was a fine corrective at the other end of 
the table; to whom her father, in the innocence of his good 
fellowship, at intervals appealed with: “ My dear, I am 
afraid you are not enjoying yourself?” 

“ Why so, R. W. ? ” she would sonorously reply. 

“ Because, my dear, you seem a little out of sorts.” 

“ Not at all,” would be the rejoinder, in exactly the same 
tone. 

“ Would you take a merry-thought, my dear?” 

Thank you. I will take whatever you please, R. W.” 

“ Well, but, my dear, do you like it? ” 

“ I like it as well as I like anything, il. W.” The stately 
woman would then, with a meritorious appearance of de- 
voting herself to the general good, pursue her dinner as if 
she were feeding somebody else on high public grounds. 

Bella had brought dessert and two bottles of wine, thus 
shedding unprecedented splendour on the occasion. Mrs. 
Wilfer did the honours of the first glass by proclaiming: 
“ R. W., I drink to you.” 

“ Thank you, my dear. And I to you.” 

“ Pa and Ma! ” said Bella. 

“ Permit me,” Mrs. Wilfer interposed, with outstretched 
glove. “ No. I think not. I drank to your Pa. If, how- 


514 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


ever, you insist on including me, I can in gratitude offer no 
objection.*' 

“ Why, Lor, Ma," interposed Lavvy the bold, “ isn’t it 
the day that made you and Pa one and the same? I have 
no patience.” 

“ By whatever other circumstances the day may be marked, 
it is not the day, Lavinia, on which I will allow a child of 
mine to pounce upon me. I beg — nay, command ! — that 
you will not pounce. R. W., it is appropriate to recall that it is 
for you to command and for me to obey. It is your house, 
and you are master at your own table. Both our healths! ” 
Drinking the toast with tremendous stiffness. 

I really am a little afraid, my dear,” hinted the cherub 
meekly, “ that you are not enjoying yourself.” 

“ On the contrary,” returned Mrs. Wilfer, “ quite so. 
Why should I not ? ” 

“I thought, my dear, that perhaps your face might ” 

“ My face might be a martyrdom, but what would that 
import, or who should know it if I smiled ? ” 

And she did smile; manifestly freezing the blood of Mr. 
George Sampson by so doing. For that young gentleman, 
catching her smiling eye, was so very much appalled by its 
expression as to cast about in his thoughts concerning what 
he had done to bring it down upon himself. 

“ The mind naturally falls,” said Mrs. Wilfer, “ shall I say 
into a reverie, or shall I say into a retrospect? on a day like 
this.” 

Lavvy, sitting with defiantly folded arms, replied (but 
not audibly), “For goodness’ sake say whichever of the two 
you like best, Ma, and get it over.” 

“ The mind,” pursued Mrs. Wilfer in an oratorical manner, 
“ naturally reverts to Papa and Mamma — I here allude to 
my parents — at a period before the earliest dawn of this 
day. I was considered tall; perhaps I w^as. Papa and 
Mamma were unquestionably tall. I have rarely seen a 
finer woman than my mother; never than my father.” 

The irrepressible Lavvy remarked aloud, “ Whatever 
grandpapa w^as, he w^asn’t a female.” 

“ Your grandpapa,” retorted Mrs. Wilfer, with an awful 
look, and in an awful tone, “ was what I describe him to 


A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY 


515 


have been, and would have struck any of his grandchildren 
to the earth who presumed to question it. It was one of 
mamma’s cherished hopes that 1 should become united to 
a tall member of society. It may have been a weakness, 
but if so, it was equally the weakness, I believe, of King 
Frederick of Prussia.” These remarks being offered to 
Mr. George Sampson, who had not the courage to come out 
for single combat, but lurked with his chest under the table 
and his eyes cast down, Mrs. Wilfer proceeded, in a voice of 
increasing sternness and impressiveness, until she should 
force that skulker to give himself up. “ Mamma would 
appear to have had an indefinable foreboding of what after- 
wards happened, for she would frequently urge upon me 
‘ Not a little man. Promise me, my child, not a little man. 
Never, never, never marry a little man!’ Papa also would 
remark to me (he possessed extra rdinary humour), ‘ that a 
family of whales must not ally themselves with sprats.’ 
His company was eagerly sought, as may be supposed, by 
the wits of the day, and our house was their continual resort. 
I have known as many as three copper-plate engravers ex- 
changing the most exquisite sallies and retorts there, at one 
time.” (Here Mr. Sampson delivered himself captive, and 
said, with an uneasy movement on his chair, that three was a 
large number, and it must have been highly entertaining.) 
“ Among the most prominent members of that distinguished 
circle, was a gentleman measuring six feet four in height. 
He was not an engraver.” (Here Mr. Sampson said, with 
no reason whatever. Of course not.) “ This gentleman was 
so obliging as to honour me with attentions which I could 
not fail to understand.” (Here Mr. Sampson murmured 
that when it came to that, you could always tell.) “ I im- 
mediately announced to both my parents that those attentions 
were misplaced, and that I could not favour his suit. They 
inquired was he too tall? I replied it was not the stature, 
but the intellect was too lofty. At our house, I said, the tone 
was too brilliant, the pressure was too high, to be maintained 
by me, a mere woman, in every-day domestic life. I well 
remember mamma’s clasping her hands, and exclaiming, 
‘This will end in a little man!’” (Here Mr. Sampson 
glanced at his host and shook his head with despondency.) 


516 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


‘‘ She afterwards went so far as to predict that it would end in a 
little man whose mind would be below the average, but that 
was in what I may denominate a paroxysm of maternal dis- 
appointment. Within a month,” said Mrs. Wilfer, deepen- 
ing her voice, as if she were relating a terrible ghost story, 
“ within a month, I first saw R. W., my husband. Within 
a year I married him. It is natural for the mind to recall 
these dark coincidences on the present day.” 

Mr. Sampson, at length released from the custody of Mrs. 
Wilfer’s eye, now drew a long breath, and made the original 
and striking remark that there was no accounting for these 
sort of presentiments. R. W. scratched his head and looked 
apologetically all round the table until he came to his wife, 
when observing her as it were shrouded in a more sombre 
veil than before, he once more hinted, My dear, I am 
really afraid you are not altogether enjoying yourself?” 
To which she once more replied, “ On the contrary, R. W. 
Quite so.” 

The wretched Mr. Sampson’s position at this agreeable 
entertainment was truly pitiable. For not only was he 
exposed defenceless to the harangues of Mrs. Wilfer, but he 
received the utmost contumely at the hands of Lavinia; 
who, partly to show Bella that she (Lavinia) could do what 
she liked with him, and partly to pay him off for still ob- 
viously admiring Bella’s beauty, led him the life of a dog. 
Bluminated on the one hand by the stately graces of Mrs. 
Wilfer’s oratory, and shadowed on the other by the checks 
and frowns of the young lady to whom he had devoted him- 
self in his destitution, the sufferings of this young gentleman 
were distressing to witness. If his mind for the moment 
reeled under them, it may be urged, in extenuation of its 
w^eakness, that it was constitutionally a knock-kneed mind, 
and never very strong upon its legs. 

The rosy hours were thus beguiled until it was time for 
Bella to have Pa’s escort back. The dimples duly tied up 
in the bonnet-strings and the leave-taking done, they got 
out into the air, and the cherub drew a long breath as if he 
found it refreshing. 

“ Well, dear Pa,” said Bella, “ the anniversary may be con- 
sidered over.” 


A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY 517 

“ Yes, my dear,” returned the cherub, there’s another of 
'em gone.” 

Bella drew his arm closer through hers as they walked 
along, and gave it a number of consolatory pats. “ Thank 
you, my dear,” he said, as if she had spoken, “ I am all 
right, my dear. Well, and how do you get on, Bella ? ” 

“ I am not at all improved, Pa.” 

“ Ain’t you really though? ” 

” No, Pa. On the contrary, I am worse.” 

“ Lor! ’’ said the cherub. 

“ I am worse. Pa. I make so many calculations how much 
a year I must have when I marry, and what is the least I can 
manage to do with, that I am beginning to get wrinkles over 
my nose. Did you notice any wrinkles over my nose this 
evening, Pa ? ” 

Pa laughing at this, Bella gave him two or three shakes. 

“You won’t laugh, sir, when you see your lovely woman 
turning haggard. You had better be prepared in time, I can 
tell you. I shall not be able to keep my greediness for money 
out of my eyes long, and when you see it there you’ll be 
sorry, and serve you right for not being warned in time. 
Now, sir, we entered into a bond of confidence. Have you 
anything to impart ? ” 

“ I thought it was you who was to impart, my love.” 

“ Oh! did you indeed, sir? Then why didn’t you ask me, 
the moment we came out ? The confidences of lovely women 
are not to be slighted. However, I forgive you this once, 
and look here, Pa; that’s ” — Bella laid the little forefinger of 
her right glove on her lip, and then laid it on her father’s 
lip — “ that’s a kiss for you. And now I am going seriously 
to tell you — let me see how many — four secrets. Mind ! 
Serious, grave, weighty secrets. Strictly between our- 
selves.” 

“ Number one, my dear? ” said her father, settling her arm 
comfortably and confidentially. 

“ Number one,” said Bella, “ will electrify you. Pa. Who 
do you think has ” — she was confused here in spite of her 
merry way of beginning — “has made an offer to me?” 
Pa looked in her face, and looked at the ground, and looked 
in her face again, and declared he could never guess. 


518 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Mr. Rokesmith.’^ 

“You don’t tell me so, my dear I ” 

“ Mis — ter Roke — smith, Pa,” said Bella, separating the 
syllables for emphasis. “ What do you say to that ? ” 

Pa answered quietly with the counter-question, “ What did 
you say to that, my love ? ” 

“ I said No,” returned Bella sharply. “ Of course.” 

“ Yes. Of course,” said her father, meditating. 

“ And I told him why I thought it a betrayal of trust on 
his part, and an affront to me,” said Bella. 

“ Yes. To be sure. I am astonished indeed. I wonder 
he committed himself without seeing more of his way first. 
Now I think of it, I suspect he always has admired you 
though, my dear.” 

“ hackney coachman may admire me,” remarked Bella, 
with a touch of her mother’s loftiness. 

“ It’s highly probable, my love. Number two, my 
dear?” 

“ Number two. Pa, is much to the same purpose, though 
not so preposterous. Mr. Lightwood would propose to me, 
if I would let him.” 

“ Then I understand, my dear, that you don’t intend to 
let him?” 

Bella again saying, with her former emphasis, “ Why, of 
course not!” her father felt himself bound to echo, “Of 
course not.” 

“ I don’t care for him,” said Bella. 

“ That’s enough,” her father interposed. 

“ No, Pa, it’s not enough,” rejoined Bella, giving him 
another shake or two. “ Haven’t I told you what a mer- 
cenary little wretch I am? It only becomes enough when 
he has no money, and no clients, and no expectations, and no 
anything but debts.” 

“Hah!” said the cherub, a little depressed. “Number 
three, my dear? ” 

“ Number three, Pa, is a better thing. A generous thing, 
a noble thing, a delightful thing. Mrs. Boffin has herself 
told me, as a secret, with her own kind lips — and truer lips 
never opened or closed in this life, I am sure — that they wish 
to see me well married; and that when I marry with their 


A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY 519 

consent they will portion me most handsomely.” Here the 
grateful girl burst out crying very heartily. 

“ Don’t cry, my darling,” said her father, with his hand to 
his eyes; “ it’s excusable in me to be a little overcome when 
I find that my dear favourite child is, after all disappoint- 
ments, to be so provided for and so raised in the world; but 
don’t you cry, don’t you cry. I am very thankful. I con- 
gratulate you with all my heart, my dear.” The good soft 
little fellow drying his eyes here, Bella put her arms round 
his neck and tenderly kissed him on the high-road, passion- 
ately telling him he was the best of fathers and the best of 
friends, and that on her wedding-morning she would go down 
on her knees to him and beg his pardon for having ever teased 
him or seemed insensible to the worth of such a patient, 
sympathetic, genial, fresh young heart. At every one of her 
adjectives she redoubled her kisses, and finally kissed his hat 
off, and then laughed immoderately when the wind took it 
and he ran after it. 

When he had recovered his hat and his breath, and they 
were going on again once more, said her father then: ‘‘ Num- 
ber four, my dear? ” 

Bella’s countenance fell in the midst of her mirth. “ After 
all, perhaps I had better put off number four. Pa. Let me 
try once more, if for never so short a time, to hope that it 
may not really be so.”- 

The change in her strengthened the cherub’s interest in 
number four, and he said quietly: May not be so, my dear? 
May not be how, my dear ? ” 

Bella looked at him pensively, and shook her head. 

And yet I know right well it is so. Pa. I know it only 
too well.” 

“ My love,” returned her father, “ you make me quite un- 
comfortable. Have you said No to anybody else, my dear? ” 

No, Pa.” 

Yes to anybody? ” he suggested, lifting up his eyebrows. 

No, Pa.”' 

Is there anybody else who would take his chance between 
Yes and No, if you would let him, my dear? ” 

“ Not that I know of. Pa.” 

‘‘ There can’t be somebody who won’t take his chance 


520 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


when you want him to?” said the cherub, as a last re- 
source. 

Why, of course not. Pa,” said Bella, giving him another 
shake or two. 

No, of course not,” he assented. “ Bella, my dear, I am 
afraid I must either have no sleep to-night, or I must press 
for number four.” 

“ Oh, Pa, there is no good in number four! I am so sorry 
for it, I am so unwilling to believe it, I have tried so earnestly 
not to see it, that it is very hard to tell, even to you. But 
Mr. BoflSn is being spoilt by prosperity, and is changing 
every day.” 

“ My dear Bella, I hope and trust not.” 

“ I have hoped and trusted not too. Pa; but every day 
he changes for the worse and for the worse. Not to me — he 
is always much the same to me — but to others about him. 
Before my eyes he grows suspicious, capricious, hard, tyran- 
nical, unjust. If ever a good man were ruined by good 
fortune, it is my benefactor. And yet. Pa, think how terrible 
the fascination of money is! I see this, and hate this, and 
dread this, and don’t know but that money might make a 
much worse change in me. And yet I have money always 
in my thoughts and my desires; and the whole life I place 
before myself is money, money, money, and what money can 
make of life! ” 


CHAPTER V 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO BAD COMPANY 

Were Bella Wilfer’s bright and ready little wits. at fault, 
or was the Golden Dustman passing through the furnace of 
proof and coming out dross? Ill news travels fast. We 
shall know full soon. 

On that very night of her return from the Happy Return, 
something chanced which Bella closely followed with her 
eyes and ears. There was an apartment at the side of the 
Boffin mansion, known as Mr. Boffin’s room. Far less grand 
than the rest of the house, it was far more comfortable, 
being pervaded by a certain air of homely snugness, wffiich 
upholstering despotism had banished to that spot when it 
inexorably set its face against Mr. Boffin’s appeals for mercy 
in behalf of any other chamber. Thus, although a room 
of modest situation — ; for its windows gave on Silas Wegg’s 
old corner — and of no pretensions to velvet, satin, or gilding, 
it had got itself established in a domestic position analogous 
to that of an easy dressing-gown or pair of slippers; and 
whenever the family wanted to enjoy a particularly pleasant 
fireside evening, they enjoyed it, as an institution that must 
be, in Mr. Boffin’s room. 

Mr. and Mrs. Boffin were reported sitting in this room, 
wffien Bella got back. Entering it, she found the Secretary 
there too; in official attendance it would appear, for he was 
standing with some papers in his hand by a table with 
shaded candles on it, at which Mr. Boffin was seated thrown 
back in his easy-chair. 

You are busy, sir,” said Bella, hesitating at the door. 

“ Not at all, my dear, not at all. You’re one of ourselves. 
We never make company of you. Come in, come in. Here’s 
the old lady in her usual place.” 


522 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Mrs. Boffin adding her nod and a smile of welcome to 
Mr. Boffin’s words, Bella took her book to a chair in the 
fireside corner, by Mrs. Boffin’s work-table. Mr. Boffin’s 
station was on the opposite side. 

“ Now, Rokesmith,” said the Golden Dustman, so sharply 
rapping the table to bespeak his attention as Bella turned 
the leaves of her book, that she started; “ where were we? ” 

“ You were saying, sir,” returned the Secretary, with an 
air of some reluctance and a glance towards those others 
who were present, that you considered the time had come 
for fixing my salary.” 

“ Don’t be above calling it wages, man,” said Mr. Boffin, 
testily. What the deuce! I never talked of my salary 
when I was in service.” • 

“ My wages,” said the Secretary, correcting himself. 

“ Rokesmith, you are not proud, I hope ? ” observed Mr. 
Boffin, eyeing him askance. 

‘‘ I hope not, sir.” 

“ Because I never was, when I was poor,” said Mr. Boffin. 
“ Poverty and pride don’t go at all well together. Mind 
that. How can they go well together? Why, it stands to 
reason. A man being poor has nothing to be proud of. It’s 
nonsense.” 

With a slight inclination of his head, and a look of some 
surprise, the Secretary seemed to assent by forming the 
syllables of the word “ nonsense ” on his lips. 

“ Now, concerning these same wages,” said Mr. Boffin. 
“ Sit down.” 

The Secretary sat down. 

“ 'Vvhy didn’t you sit down before?” asked Mr. Boffin, 
distrustfully. “ I hope that wasn’t pride? But about these 
wages. Now, I’ve gone into the matter, and I say two hun- 
dred a year. What do you think of it? Do you think it’s 
enough ? ” 

“ Thank you. It is a fair proposal.” 

‘‘ I don’t say, you know,” Mr. Boffin stipulated, “ but what 
it may be more than enough. And I’ll tell you why, Roke- 
smith. A man of property, like me, is bound to consider 
the market-price. At first I didn’t enter, into that as much 
as I might have done; but I’ve got acquainted with other 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN BAD COMPANY 523 


men of property since, and I’ve got acquainted with the 
duties of property. I mustn’t go putting the market-price 
up, because money may happen not to be an object with 
me. A sheep is worth so much in the market, and I ought 
to give it and no more. A secretary is worth so much in the 
market, and I ought to give it and no more. However, I 
don’t mind stretching a point with you.” 

“ Mr. Boffin, you are very good,” replied the Secretary, 
with an effort. 

“ Then we put the figure,” said Mr. Boffin, “ at two 
hundred a year. Then the figure’s disposed of. Now there 
must be no misunderstanding regarding what I buy for two 
hundred a year. If I pay for a sheep, I buy it out and out. 
Similarly, if I pay for a secretary, I buy him out and out.” 

‘‘In other words, you purchase my whole time?” 

“ Certainly I do. Look here,” said Mr. Boffin, “ it ain’t 
that I want to occupy your whole time; you can take up 
a book for a minute or two when you’ve nothing better 
to do, though I think you’ll a’most always find something 
useful to do. But I want to keep you in attendance. It’s 
convenient to have you at all times ready on the premises. 
Therefore, betwixt your breakfast and your supper, — on the 
premises I expect to find you.” 

The Secretary bowQd. 

“ In bygone days, when I was in service myself,” said Mr. 
Boffin, “ I couldn’t go cutting about at my will and pleasure, 
and you won’t expect to go cutting about at your will and 
pleasure. You’ve rather got into a habit of that, lately; 
but perhaps it was for want of a right specification betwixt 
us. Now let there be a right specification betwixt us, and 
let it be this. If you want leave, ask for it.” 

Again the Secretary bowed. His manner was uneasy and 
astonished, and showed a sense of humiliation. 

“ I’ll have a bell,” said Mr. Boffin, “ hung from this room to 
yours, and when I want you I’ll touch it. I don’t call to mind 
that I have anything more to say at the present moment.” 

The Secretary rose, gathered up his papers, and withdrew. 
Bella’s eyes followed him to the door, lighted on Mr. Boffin 
complacently thrown back in his easy-chair, and drooped 
over her book. 


524 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I have let that chap, that young man of mine,” said 
Mr. Boffin, taking a trot up and down the room, ” get above 
his work. It won’t do. I must have him down a peg. A 
man of property owes a duty to other men of property, and 
must look sharp after his inferiors.” 

Bella felt that Mrs. Boffin was not comfortable, and that 
the eyes of that good creature sought to discover from her 
face what attention she had given to this discourse, and what 
impression it had made upon her. For which reason Bella’s 
eyes drooped more engrossedly over her book, and she turned 
the page with an air of profound absorption in it. 

“ Noddy,” said Mrs. Boffin, after thoughtfully pausing in 
her work. 

** My dear,” returned the Golden Dustman, stopping short 
in his trot. 

“ Excuse my putting it to you, Noddy, but now really! 
Haven’t you been a little strict with Mr. Rokesmith to-night? 
Haven’t you been a little — just a little little — not quite like 
your old self ? ” 

Why, old woman, I hope so,” returned Mr. Boffin, cheer- 
fully, if not boastfully. 

“ Hope so, deary? ” 

“ Our old selves wouldn’t do here, old lady. Haven’t you 
found that out yet ? Our old selves would be fit for nothing 
here but to be robbed and imposed upon. Our old selves 
weren’t people of fortune; our new selves are; it’s a great 
difference.” 

Ah! ” said Mrs. Boffin, pausing in her work again, softly 
to draw a long breath and to look at the fire. ‘‘A great 
difference.” 

“ And we must be up to the difference,” pursued her hus- 
band ; “ we must be equal to the change; that’s what we must 
be. We’ve got to hold our own now, against everybody (for 
everybody’s hand is stretched out to be dipped into our 
pockets), and we have got to recollect that money makes 
money, as well as makes every thing else.” 

“ Mentioning recollecting,” said Mrs. Boffin, wdth her work 
abandoned, her eyes upon the fire, and her chin upon her 
hand, “ do you recollect. Noddy, how you said to Mr. Roke- 
smith when he first came to see us at the Bower, and you 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN BAD COMPANY 525 

engaged him — how you said to him that if it had pleased 
Heaven to send John Harmon to his fortune safe, we could 
have been content with the one Mound which was our legacy, 
and should never have wanted the rest ? ” 

“ Ay, I remember, old lady. But we hadn’t tried what it 
was to have the rest then. Our new shoes had come home, 
but we hadn’t put ’em on. We’re wearing ’em now, we’re 
wearing ’em, and must step out accordingly.” 

Mrs. Boffin took up her work again, and plied her needle 
in silence. 

“As to Rokesmith, that young man of mine,” said Mr. 
Boffin, dropping his voice and glancing towards the door with 
an apprehension of being overheard by some eavesdropper 
there, “ it’s the same with him as with the footmen. I have 
found out that you must either scrunch them, or let them 
scrunch you. If you ain’t imperious with ’em, they won’t 
believe in your being any better than themselves, if as good, 
after the stories (lies mostly) that they have heard of your 
beginnings. There’s nothing betwixt stiffening yourself up, 
and throwing yourself away: take my word for that, old 
lady.” 

Bella ventured for a moment to look stealthily towards him 
under her eyelashes, and she saw a dark cloud of suspicion, 
covetousness, and conceit, overshadowing the once open face. 

“ Hows’ever,” said he, “ this isn’t entertaining to Miss 
Bella. Is it, Bella?” 

A deceiving Bella she was, to look at him with that pen- 
sively abstracted air, as if her mind were full of her book, 
and she had not heard a single word ! 

“ Hah! Better employed than to attend to it,” said Mr. 
Boffin. “ That’s right, that’s right. Especially as you have 
no call to be told how to value yourself, my dear.” 

Colouring a little under this compliment, Bella returned, 
“ I hope, sir, you don’t think me vain ? ” 

“ Not a bit, my dear,” said Mr. Boffin. “ But I think it’s 
very creditable in you, at your age, to be so well up with the 
pace of the world, and to know what to go in for. You are 
right. Go in for money, my love. Money’s the article. You’ll 
make money of your good looks, and of the money Mrs. 
Boffin and me will have the pleasure of settling upon you, and 


526 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


you’ll live and die rich. That’s the state to live and die in 1 ” 
said Mr. Boffin, in an unctuous manner. “ R — r — rich! ” 

There was an expression of distress in Mrs. Boffin’s face, as, 
after watching her husband’s, she turned to their adopted 
girl, and said: Don’t mind him, Bella, my dear.” 

“ Eh? ” cried Mr. Boffin. “ What! Not mind him? ” 

“ I don’t mean that,” said Mrs. Boffin, with a worried look, 
“ but I mean, don’t believe him to be anything but good and 
generous, Bella, because he is the best of men. No, I must 
say that much, Noddy. You are always the best of men.” 

She made the declaration as if he were objecting to it: 
which assuredly he was not in any way. 

“ And as to you, my dear Bella,” said Mrs. Boffin, still with 
that distressed expression, “ he is so much attached to you, 
whatever he says, that your own father has not a truer interest 
in you and caii hardly like you better than he does.” 

“ Says too! ” cried Mr. Boffin. “ Whatever he says! Why, 
I say so, openly. Give me a kiss, my dear child, in saying 
Good night, and let me confirm what my old lady tells you. 
I am very fond of you, my dear, and I am entirely of your 
mind, and you and I will take care that you shall be rich. 
These good looks of yours (which you have some right to be 
vain of, my dear, though you are not, you know) are worth 
money, and you shall make money of ’em. The money you 
will have, will be worth money, and you shall make money 
of that too. There’s a golden ball at your feet. Good night, 
my dear.” 

Somehow, Bella was not so well pleased with this assurance 
and this prospect as she might have been. Somehow, when 
she put her arms round Mrs. Boffin’s neck and said Good 
night, she derived a sense of unworthiness from the still 
anxious face of that good woman and her obvious wish to 
excuse her husband. “Why, what need to excuse him?” 
thought Bella, sitting down in her own room. “ What he 
said was very sensible, I am sure, and very true, I am sure. 
It is only what I often say to myself. Don’t I like it then ? 
No, I don’t like it, and, though he is my liberal benefactor, 
I disparage him for it. Then pray,” said Bella, sternly putting 
the question to herself in the looking-glass as usual, “ what 
do you mean by this, you inconsistent little Beast ? ” 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN BAD COMPANY 527 


The looking-glass preserving a discreet ministerial silence 
when thus called upon for explanation, Bella went to bed with 
a weariness upon her spirit which was more than the weari- 
ness of want of sleep. And again in the morning, she looked 
for the cloud, and for the deepening of the cloud, upon the 
Golden Dustman’s face. 

She had begun by this time to be his frequent companion 
in his morning strolls about the streets, and it was at this 
time that he made her a party to his engaging in a curious 
pursuit. Having been hard at work in one dull enclosure all 
his life, he had a child’s delight in looking at shops. It had 
been one of the first novelties and pleasures of his freedom, 
and was equally the delight of his wife. For many years 
their only walks in London had been taken on Sundays when 
the shops were shut; and when every day in the week became 
their holiday, they derived an enjoyment from the variety and 
fancy and beauty of the display in the windows, which seemed 
incapable of exhaustion. As if the principal streets were a 
great Theatre and the play were childishly new to them, Mr. 
and Mrs. Boffin, from the beginning of Bella’s intimacy in 
their house, had been constantly in the front row, charmed 
with all they saw, and applauding vigorously. But now Mr. 
Boffin’s interest began to centre in book-shops; and more 
than that — for that of itself would not have been much — in 
one exceptional kind of book. 

“ Look in here, my dear,” Mr. Boffin would say, checking 
Bella’s arm at a bookseller’s window; “ you can read at sight, 
and your eyes are as sharp as they’re bright. Now, look well 
about you, my dear, and tell me if you see any book about a 
Miser,” 

If Bella saw such a book, Mr. Boffin would instantly dart 
in and buy it. And still, if they had not found it, they would 
seek out another book-shop, and Mr. Boffin would say, 
‘‘ Now, look well all round, my dear, for a Life of a Miser, or 
any book of that sort; any Lives of odd characters who may 
have been Misers.” 

Bella, thus directed, would examine the window with the 
greatest attention, while Mr. Boffin would examine her face. 
The moment she pointed out any book as being entitled 
Lives of eccentric personages. Anecdotes of strange characters. 


528 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Records of remarkable individuals, or anything to that 
purpose, Mr. Boffin’s countenance would light up, and he 
would instantly dart in and buy it. Size, price, quality, 
were of no account. Any book that seemed to promise a 
chance of miserly biography, Mr. Boffin purchased without a 
moment’s delay and carried home. Happening to be informed 
by a bookseller that a portion of the Annual Register was 
devoted to “ Characters,” Mr. Boffin at once bought a whole 
set of that ingenious compilation, and began to carry it home 
piecemeal, confiding a volume to Bella, and bearing three 
himself. The completion of this labour occupied them about 
a fortnight. When the task was done, Mr. Boffin, wfith his 
appetite for Misers whetted instead of satiated, began to look 
out again. 

It very soon became unnecessary to tell Bella what to look 
for, and an understanding was established between her and 
Mr. Boffin that she was always to look for Lives of Misers. 
Morning after morning they roamed about the town together, 
pursuing this singular research. Miserly literature not being 
abundant, the proportion of failures to successes may have 
been as a hundred to one; still Mr. Boffin, never wearied, 
remained as avaricious for misers as he had been at the first 
onset. It was curious that Bella never saw the books about 
the house, nor did she ever hear from Mr. Boffin one word 
of reference to their contents. He seemed to save up his 
Misers as they had saved up their money. As they had been 
greedy for it, and secret about it, and had hidden it, so he 
was greedy for them, and secret about them, and hid them. 
But beyond all doubt it was to be noticed, and was by Bella 
very clearly noticed, that, as he pursued the acquisition of 
those dismal records with the ardour of Don Quixote for his 
books of chivalry, he began to spend his money with a more 
sparing hand. And often when he came out of a shop with 
some new account of one of those wretched lunatics, she 
would almost shrink from the sly dry chuckle with which he 
would take her arm again and trot away. It did not appear 
that Mrs. Boffin knew of his taste. He made no allusion 
to it, except in the morning walks when he and Bella were 
always alone; and Bella, partly under the impression that 
he took her into his confidence by implication, and partly in 




THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN BAD COMPANY 529 

remembrance of Mrs. Boffin^s anxious face that night, held 
the same reserve. 

While these occurrences were in progress, Mrs. Lammle 
made the discovery that Bella had a fascinating influence 
over her. The Lammles, originally presented by the dear 
Veneerings, visited the Boffins on all grand occasions, and 
Mrs. Lammle had not previously found this out; but now 
the knowledge came upon her all at once. It was a most 
extraordinary thing (she said to Mrs. Boffin); she was 
foolishly susceptible of the power of beauty, but it wasn’t 
altogether that; she never had been able to resist a natural 
grace of manner, but it wasn’t altogether that; it was more 
than that, and there was no name for the indescribable 
extent and degree to which she was captivated by this charm- 
ing girl. 

This charming girl having the words repeated to her by 
Mrs. Boffin (who was proud of her being admired, and would 
have done anything to give her pleasure), naturally recognised 
in Mrs. Lammle a woman of penetration and taste. Re- 
sponding to the sentiments by being very gracious to Mrs. 
Lammle, she gave that lady the means of so improving her 
opportunity, as that the captivation became reciprocal, though 
always wearing an appearance of greater sobriety on Bella’s 
part than on the enthusiastic Sophronia’s. Howbeit, they 
were so much together that, for a time, the Boffin chariot 
held Mrs. Lammle oftener than Mrs. Boffin : a preference of 
which the latter worthy soul was not in the least jealous, 
placidly remarking, “ Mrs. Lammle is a younger com- 
panion for her than I am, and Lor! she’s more fashion- 
able.” 

But between Bella Wilfer and Georgiana Podsnap there 
was this one difference, among many others, that Bella was 
in no danger of being captivated by Alfred. She distrusted 
and disliked him. Indeed, her perception was so quick, and 
her observation so sharp, that after all she mistrusted his 
wife too, though with her giddy vanity and wilfulness she 
squeezed the mistrust away into a corner of her mind, and 
blocked it up there. 

Mrs. Lammle took the friendliest interest in Bella’s making 
a good match. Mrs. Lammle said, in a sportive way, she 


530 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


really must show her beautiful Bella what kind of wealthy 
creatures she and Alfred had on hand, who would as one 
man fall at her feet enslaved. Fitting occasion made, Mrs. 
Lammle accordingly produced the most passable of those 
feverish, boastful, and indefinably loose gentlemen who were 
always lounging in and out of the City on questions of the 
Bourse and Greek and Spanish and India and Mexican and 
par and premium and discount and three-quarters and seven- 
eighths. Who in their agreeable manner did homage to 
Bella as if she were a compound of fine girl, thorough-bred 
horse, well-built drag, and remarkable pipe. But without 
the least effect, though even Mr. Fledgeby’s attractions were 
cast into the scale. 

I fear, Bella dear,” said Mrs. Lammle one day in the 
chariot, “ that you will be very hard to please.” 

“ I don’t expect to be pleased, dear,” said Bella, with a 
languid turn of her eyes. 

“ Truly, my love,” returned Sophronia, shaking her head, 
and smiling her best smile, “ it would not be very easy to 
find a man worthy of your attractions.” 

“ The question is not a man, my dear,” said Bella, coolly, 
“ but an establishment.” 

“ My love,” returned Mrs. Lammle, “ your prudence 
amazes me — where did you study life so well ? — you are 
right. In such a case as yours, the object is a fitting establish- 
ment. You could not descend to an inadequate one from Mr. 
Boffin’s house, and even if your beauty alone could not 
command it, it is to be assumed that Mr. and Mrs. Bofiin 
will ” 

Oh! they have already,” Bella interposed. 

“ No! Have they really? ” 

A little vexed by a suspicion that she had spoken pre- 
cipitately, and withal a little defiant of her own vexation, 
Bella determined not to retreat. 

“ That is to say,” she explained, “ they have told me they 
mean to portion me as their adopted child, if you mean that. 
But don’t mention it.” 

“ Mention it! ” replied Mrs. Lammle, as if she were full of 
awakened feeling at the suggestion of such an impossibility. 
“ Men-tion it! ” 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN BAD COMPANY 531 

“ I don’t mind telling you, Mrs. Lammle ” Bella began 

again. 

“ My love, say Sophronia, or I must not say Bella.” 

With a little short, petulant “Oh!” Bella complied. 
“Oh! — Sophronia then — I don’t mind telling you, So- 
phronia, that I am convinced I have no heart, as people call 
it; and that I think that sort of thing is nonsense.” 

“ Brave girl!” murmured Mrs. Lammle. 

“ And so,” pursued Bella, “ as to seeking to please myself, 
I don’t; except in the one respect I have mentioned. I am 
indifferent otherwise.” 

“ But you can’t help pleasing, Bella,” said Mrs. Lammle, 
rallying her with an arch look and her best smile, “ you can’t 
help making a proud and an admiring husband. You may 
not care to please yourself, and you may not care to please 
him, but you are not a free agent as to pleasing; you are 
forced to do that, in spite of yourself, my dear; so it may 
be a question whether you may not as well please yourself 
too, if you can.” 

Now the very grossness of this flattery put Bella upon 
proving that she actually did please in spite of herself. She 
had a misgiving that she was doing wrong — though she had 
an indistinct foreshadowing that some harm might come 
of it thereafter, she little thought what consequences it 
would really bring about — but she went on with her con- 
fidence. 

“ Don’t talk of pleasing in spite of one’s self, dear,” said 
Bella. “ I have had enough of that.” 

“Ay?” cried Mrs. Lammle. “Am I already corrobo- 
rated, Bella ? ” 

“ Never mind, Sophronia, we will not speak of it any more. 
Don’t ask me about it.” 

This plainly meaning Do ask me about it, Mrs. Lammle 
did as she was requested. 

“ Tell me, Bella. Come, my dear. What provoking burr 
has been inconveniently attracted to the charming skirts, and 
with difficulty shaken off ? ” 

“ Provoking indeed,” said Bella, and no burr to boast 
of! But don’t ask me.” 

“ Shall I guess?” 


532 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


** You would never guess. What would you say to our 
Secretary ? ” 

“ My dear! The hermit Secretary, who creeps up and 
down the back stairs, and is never seen ? 

“ I don’t know about his creeping up and down the back 
stairs,” said Bella, rather contemptuously, further than 
knowing that he does no such thing; and as to his never 
being seen, I should be content never to have seen him, 
though he is quite as visible as you are. But I pleased him 
(for my sins), and he had the presumption to tell me so.” 

The man never made a declaration to you, my dear 
Bella?” 

Are you sure of that, Sophronia? ” said Bella. “ 1 am 
not. In fact, I am sure of the contrary.” 

The man must be mad,” said Mrs. Lammle, with a kind 
of resignation. 

“ He appeared to be in his senses,” returned Bella, tossing 
her head, “ and he had plenty to say for himself. I told him 
my opinion of his declaration and his conduct, and dismissed 
him. Of course this has all been very inconvenient to me, 
and very disagreeable. It has remained a secret, however. 
That word reminds me to observe, Sophronia, that I have 
glided on into telling you the secret, and that I rely upon 
you never to mention it.” 

Mention it! repeated Mrs. Lammle with her former 
feeling. “ Men-tion it!” 

This time Sophronia was so much in earnest that she found 
it necessary to bend forward in the carriage and give Bella a 
kiss. A Judas order of kiss; for she thought, while she yet 
])re.ssed Bella’s hand after giving it, “ Upon your own show- 
ing, you vain heartless girl, puffed up by the doting folly of 
a dustman, I need have no relenting towards you. If my 
husband, who sends me here, should form any schemes for 
making you a victim, I should certainly not cross him again.” 
In those very same moments, Bella was thinking, “ Why 
am I always at war with myself? Why have I told, as if 
upon compulsion, what I knew all along I ought to have 
withheld ? Why am I making a friend of this woman beside 
me, in spite of the whispers against her that I hear in my 
heart?” 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN BAD COMPANY 533 

As usual, there was no answer in the looking-glass when 
she got home and referred these questions to it. Perhaps if 
she had consulted some better oracle, the result might have 
been more satisfactory; but she did not, and all things con- 
sequent marched the march before them. 

On one point connected with the watch she kept on Mr. 
Boffin, she felt very inquisitive, and that was the question 
whether the Secretary watched him too, and followed the sure 
and steady change in him, as she did? Her very limited 
intercourse with Mr. Rokesmith rendered this hard to find 
out. Their communication now at no time extended beyond 
the preservation of commonplace appearances before Mr. and 
Mrs. Boffin; and if Bella and the Secretary were ever left 
alone together by any chance, he immediately withdrew. 
She consulted his face when she could do so covertly, as she 
worked or read, and could make nothing of it. He looked 
subdued ; but he had acquired a strong command of feature, 
and, whenever Mr. Boffin spoke to him in Bella’s presence, or 
whatever revelation of himself Mr. Boffin made, the Secre- 
tary’s face. changed no more than a wall. A slightly knitted 
brow, that expressed nothing but an almost mechanical 
attention, and a compression of the mouth, that might have 
been a guard against a scornful smile — these she saw from 
morning to night, from day to day, from week to week, 
monotonous, unvarying, set, as in a piece of sculpture. 

The worst of the matter was, that it thus fell out insensibly 
— and most provokingly, as Bella complained to herself, in 
her impetuous little manner — that her observation of Mr. 
Boffin involved a continual observation of Mr. Rokesmith. 

“Won’t that extract a look from him?” — “Can it be 
possible that makes no impression on him ? ” Such questions 
Bella would propose to herself, often as many times in a day 
as there were hours in it. Impossible to know. Always the 
same fixed face. 

“ Can he be so base as to sell his very nature for two 
hundred a year?” Bella would think. And then, “But 
why not? It’s a mere question of price with others besides 
him. I suppose I would sell mine, if I could get enough for 
it.” And so she would come round again to the war with 
herself. 


534 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


A kind of illegibility, though a different kind, stole over 
Mr. Boffin’s face. Its old simplicity of expression got masked 
by a certain craftiness that assimilated even his good-humour 
to itself. His very smile was cunning, as if he had been 
studying smiles among the portraits of his misers. Saving 
an occasional burst of impatience, or coarse assertion of his 
mastery, his good-humour remained to him, but it had now 
a sordid alloy of distrust; and though his eyes should twinkle 
and all his face should laugh, he would sit holding himself 
in his own arms, as if he had an inclination to hoard himself 
up, and must always grudgingly stand on the defensive. 

What with taking heed of these two faces, and what with 
feeling conscious that the stealthy occupation must set some 
mark on her own, Bella soon began to think that there was 
not a candid or a natural face among them all but Mrs. 
Boffin’s. None the less because it was far less radiant than 
of yore, faithfully reflecting in its anxiety and regret every 
Ime of change in the Golden Dustman’s. 

“ Rokesmith,” said Mr. Boffin one evening when they were 
all in his room again, and he and the Secretary had been 
going over some accounts, “ I am spending too much money. 
Or leastways, you are spending too much for me.” 

You are rich, sir.” 

“ I am not,” said Mr. Boffin. 

The sharpness of the retort was next to telling the Secre- 
tary that he lied. But it brought no change of expression 
into the set face. 

I tell you I am not rich,” repeated Mr. Boffin, ‘‘ and I 
won’t have it.” 

You are not rich, sir?” repeated the Secretary, in 
measured words. 

“ Well,” returned Mr. Boffin, if I am, that’s my business. 
I am not going to spend at this rate, to please you or any- 
body. You wouldn’t like it, if it was your money.” 

“ Even in that impossible case, sir, I ” 

Hold your tongue!” said Mr. Boffin. “You oughtn’t 
to like it in any case. There! I didn’t mean to be rude, 
but you put me out so, and after all I’m master. I didn’t 
intend to tell you to hold your tongue. I beg your pardon. 
Don’t hold your tongue. Only, don’t contradict. Did you 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN BAD COMPANY 535 

ever come across the life of Mr. Elwes?” referring to his 
favourite subject at last. 

“The miser?’’ 

“ Ah, people called him a miser. People are always call- 
ing other people something. Did you ever read about 
him?” 

“ I think so.” 

“ He never owned to being rich, and yet he might have 
bought me twice over. Did you ever hear of Daniel 
Dancer?” 

“ Another miser? Yes.” 

“ He was a good ’un,” said Mr. Boffin, “ and he had a 
sister worthy of him. They never called themselves rich 
neither. If they had called themselves rich, most likely 
they wouldn’t have been so.” 

“ They lived and died very miserably. Did they not, 
sir?” 

“ No, I don’t know that they did,” said Mr. Boffin, curtly. 

“ Then they are not the misers I mean. Those abject 
wretches — ^ — ” 

“ Don’t call names, Rokesmith,” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ That exemplary brother and sister — lived and died 

in the foulest and filthiest degradation.” 

“ They pleased themselves,” said Mr. Boffin, “ and I sup- 
pose they could have done no more if they had spent their 
money. But however, I ain’t going to fling mine away. Keep 
the expenses down. The fact is, you ain’t enough here, Roke- 
smith. It wants constant attention in the littlest things. 
Some of us will be dying in a workhouse next.” 

“ As the persons you have cited,” quietly remarked the 
Secretary, “ thought they would, if I remember, sir?” 

“ And very creditable in ’em too,” said Mr. Boffin. “ Very 
independent in ’em! But never mind them just now; Have 
you given notice to quit your lodgings?” 

“ IJnder your direction, I have, sir.” 

“ Then I tell you what,” said Mr. Boffin; “ pay the quarter’s 
rent — pay the quarter’s rent, it’ll be the cheapest thing in 
the end — and come here at once, so that you may be always 
on the spot, day and night, and keep the expenses down. 
You’ll charge the quarter’s rent to me, and we must try 


536 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


and save it somewhere. You’ve got some lovely furniture; 
haven’t you? ” 

“ The furniture in my rooms is my own.” 

“ Then we shan’t have to buy any for you. In case you 
was to think it,” said Mr. Boffin, with a look of peculiar 
shrewdness, “ so honourably independent in you as to make 
it a relief to your mind to make that furniture over to me 
in the light of a set-off against the quarter’s rent, why, ease 
your mind, ease your mind. I don’t ask it, but I won’t stand 
in your way if you should consider it due to yourself. As 
to your room, choose any empty room at the top of the 
house.” 

“ Any empty room will do for me,” said the Secretary. 

“ You can take your pick,” said Mr. Boffin, “ and it will 
be as good as eight or ten shillings a week added to your 
income. I won’t deduct for it; I look to you to make it up 
handsomely by keeping the expenses down. Now if you’ll 
show a light. I’ll come to your office-room and dispose of a 
letter or two.” 

On that clear, generous face of Mrs. Boffin’s, Bella had 
seen such traces of a pang at the heart while this dialogue 
was being held, that she had not the courage to turn her 
eyes to it when they were left alone. Feigning to be intent 
on her embroidery, she sat plying her needle until her busy 
hand was stopped by Mrs. Boffin’s hand being lightly laid 
upon it. Yielding to the touch, she felt her hand carried 
to the good soul’s lips, and felt a tear fall on it. 

“Oh, my loved husband!” said Mrs. Boffin. “This is 
hard to see and hear. But, my dear Bella, believe me that 
in spite of all the change in him, he is the best of men.” 

He came back at the moment when Bella had taken the 
hand comfortingly between her own. 

“Eh?” said he, mistrustfuHy looking in at the door. 
“ What’s she telling you ? ” 

“ She’s only praising you, sir,” said Bella. 

“Praising me? You are sure? Not blaming me for 
standing on my own defence against a crew of plunderers, 
who would suck me dry by driblets? Not blaming me for 
getting a little hoard together ? ” 

He came up to them, and his wife folded her hands upon 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN BAD COMPANY 537 

his shoulder, and shook her head as she laid it on her 
hands. 

‘‘ There, there, there! urged Mr. Boffin, not unkindly. 
“ Don’t take on, old lady.” 

“ But I can’t bear to see you so, my dear.” 

“ Nonsense! Recollect we are not our old selves. Recol- 
lect, we must scrunch or be scrunched. Recollect, we must 
hold our own. Recollect, money makes money. Don’t you 
be uneasy, Bella, my child; don’t you be doubtful. The more 
I save, the more you shall have.” 

Bella thought it was well for his wife that she was musing 
with her affectionate face on his shoulder; for there was a 
cunning light in his eyes as he said all this, which seemed 
to cast a disagreeable illumination on the change in him, 
and make it morally uglier. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO WORSE COMPANY 

It had come to pass that Mr. Silas Wegg now rarely at- 
tended the minion of fortune and the worm of the hour, at his 
(the worm’s and minion’s) own house, but lay under general 
instructions to await him within a certain margin of hours 
at the Bower. Mr. Wegg took this arrangement in great 
dudgeon, because the appointed hours were evening hours, 
and those he considered precious to the progress of the 
friendly move. But it was quite in character, he bitterly 
remarked to Mr. Venus, that the upstart who had trampled 
on those eminent creatures. Miss Elizabeth, Master George, 
Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, should oppress his literary 
man. 

The Roman Empire having worked out its destruction, 
Mr. Boffin next appeared in a cab with Rollin’ s Ancient 
History, which valuable work being found to possess lethargic 
properties, broke down at about the period when the whole 
of the army of Alexander the Macedonian (at that time 
about forty thousand strong) burst into tears simultaneously 
on his being taken with a shivering fit after bathing. The 
Wars of the Jews likewise languishing under Mr. Wegg’s 
generalship, Mr. Boffin arrived in another cab with Plutarch : 
whose Lives he found in the sequel extremely entertaining, 
though he hoped Plutarch might not expect him to believe 
them all. What to believe, in the course of his reading, was 
Mr. Boffin’s chief literary difficulty indeed; for some time 
he was divided in his mind between half, all, or none; at 
length, when he decided, as a moderate man, to compound 
with half, the question still remained, which half? And 
that stumbling-block he never got over. 

One evening, when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN WORSE COMPANY 539 

the arrival of his patron in a cab, accompanied by some 
profane historian charged with unutterable names of incom- 
prehensible peoples, of impossible descent, waging wars any 
number of years and syllables long, and carrying illimitable 
hosts and riches about, with the greatest ease, beyond the 
confines of geography — one evening the usual time passed 
by, and no patron appeared. After half an hour’s grace, 
Mr. Wegg proceeded to the outer gate, and there executed 
a whistle, conveying to Mr. Venus, if perchance within hear- 
ing, the tidings of his being at home and disengaged. Forth 
from the shelter of a neighbouring wall Mr. Venus then 
emerged. 

“ Brother in arms,” said Mr. Wegg, in excellent spirits, 
‘‘welcome!” 

In return, Mr. Venus gave him a rather dry good even- 
ing. 

“ Walk in, brother,” said Silas, clapping him on the 
shoulder, “ and take your seat in my chimney corner; for 
what says the ballad? 

‘ No malice to dread, sir. 

And no falsehood to fear, 

But truth to delight me, Mr. Venus, 

And I forgot what to cheer. 

Li toddle dee om dee. 

And something to guide. 

My ain fireside, sir, 

My ain fireside.’ ” 

With this quotation (depending for its neatness rather on 
the spirit than the words), Mr. Wegg conducted his guest to 
his hearth. 

“ And you come, brother,” said Mr. Wegg, in a hospitable 
glow, “ you come like I don’t know what — exactly like it — 
I shouldn’t know you from it — shedding a halo all around 
you.” 

“ What kind of halo? ” asked Mr. Venus. 

“ ’Ope, sir,” replied Silas. “ That’s your halo.” 

Mr. Venus appeared doubtful on the point, and looked 
rather discontentedly at the fire. 

“ We’ll devote the evening, brother,” exclaimed Wegg, “ to 
prosecute our friendly move. And afterwards, crushing a 


540 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


flowing wine-cup — which I allude to brewing rum and water 
— we'll pledge one another. For what says the Poet ? 

And you needn’t, Mr. Venus, be your black bottle, 

For surely I’ll be mine, 

And we’ll take a glass with a slice of lemon in it to which you’re 
partial, 

For auld lang syne.’ ” 

This flow of quotation and hospitality in Wegg indicated 
his observation of some little querulousness on the part of 
Venus. 

“ Why, as to the friendly move," observed the last-named 
gentleman, rubbing his knees peevishly, “ one of my objec- 
tions to it is, that it don’t move.” 

“ Rome, brother,” returned Wegg: ” a city which (it may 
not be generally known) originated in twins and a wolf,* and 
ended in Imperial marble, wasn't built in a day.” 

“ Did I say it was? ” asked Venus. 

“ No, you did not, brother. Well inquired.” 

“ But I do say,” proceeded Venus, “ that I am taken from 
among my trophies of anatomy, am called upon to exchange 
my human warious for mere coal -ashes warious, and nothing 
comes of it. I think I must give up.” 

“No, sir!” remonstrated Wegg, enthusiastically. “No, 
sir! 

‘ Charge, Chester, charge, 

On, Mr. Venus, on! ’ 

Never say die, sir! A man of your mark! ” 

“ It’s not so much saying it that I object to,” returned Mr. 
Venus, “ as doing it. And having got to do it whether or 
no, I can't afford to waste my time on groping for nothing 
in cinders.” 

“ But think how little time you have given to the move, 
sir, after all,” urged Wegg. “ Add the evenings so occupied 
together, and what do they come to? And you, sir, harmon- 
iser with myself in opinions, views, and feelings, you with 
the patience to fit together on wires the whole framework 
of society — I allude to the human skelinton — you to give in 
so soon ! ” 

“ I don't like it,” returned Mr. Venus moodily, as he put 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN WORSE COMPANY 541 

his head between his knees and stuck up his dusty hair. 
“And there’s no encouragement to go on.” 

“ Not them Mounds without,” said Mr. Wegg, extending 
his right hand with an air of solemn reasoning, “ encourage- 
ment ? Not them Mounds now looking down upon us ? ” 

“ They’re too big,” grumbled Venus. “ What’s a scratch 
here and a scrape there, a poke in this place and a dig in the 
other, to them? Besides: what have we found?” 

“ What have we found ? ” cried Wegg, delighted to be able 
to acquiesce. “Ah! There I grant you, comrade. Nothing. 
But on the contrary, comrade, what may we find ? There 
you’ll grant me. Anything.” 

“ I don’t like it,” pettishly returned Venus as before. “ I 
came into it without enough consideration. And besides 
again. Isn’t your own Mr. Boffin well acquainted with the 
Mounds ? And wasn’t he well acquainted with the deceased 
and his ways? And has he ever showed any expectation of 
finding anything ? ” 

At that moment wheels were heard. 

“ Now I should be loth,” said Mr. Wegg, with an air of 
patient injury, “ to think so ill of him as to suppose him 
capable of coming at this time of night. And yet it sounds 
like him.” 

A ring at the yard bell. 

“ It w him,” said Mr. Wegg, “ and he is capable of it. 
I am sorry, because I could have wished to keep up a little 
lingering fragment of respect for him.” 

Here Mr. Boflfin was heard lustily calling at the yard gate, 
“Halloa! Wegg! Halloa!” 

“ Keep your seat, Mr. Venus,” said Wegg. “ He may not 
stop.” And then called out, “Halloa, sir! Halloa! I’m 
with you directly, sir! Half a minute, Mr. Boffin. Coming, 
sir, as fast as my leg will bring me! ” And so with a show 
of much cheerful alacrity stumped out to the gate with a 
light, and there, through the window of a cab, descried Mr. 
Boffin inside, blocked up with books. 

“ Here! lend a hand, Wegg,” said Mr. Boffin excitedly, 
“ I can’t get out till the way is cleared for me. This is the 
Annual Register, Wegg, in a cabful of wollumes. Do you 
know him ? ” 


542 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Know the Animal Register, sir? ” returned the Impostor, 
who had caught the name imperfectly. “ For a trifling 
wager, I think I could find any Animal in him, blindfold, 
Mr. Boffin.” 

“ And here’s Kirby’s Wonderful Museum,” said Mr. Boffin, 
“ and Caulfield’s Characters, and Wilson’s. Such Characters, 
Wegg, such Characters! I must have one or two of the best 
of ’em to-night. It’s amazing what places they used to put 
the guineas in, wrapped up in rags. Catch hold of that pile 
of wollumes, Wegg, or it’ll bulge out and burst into the 
mud. Is there any one about, to help ? ” 

“ There’s a friend of mine, sir, that had the intention of 
spending the evening with me when I gave you up — much 
against my will — for the night.” 

“ Call him out,” cried Mr. Boffin in a bustle; “ get him to 
bear a hand. Don’t drop that one under your arm. It’s 
Dancer. Him and his sister made pies of a dead sheep they 
found when they were out a-walking. Where’s your friend ? 
Oh, here’s your friend. Would you be so good as help Wegg 
and myself with these books ? But don’t take Jemmy Taylor 
of Southwark, nor yet Jemmy Wood of Gloucester. These 
are the two Jemmys. I’ll carry them myself.” 

Not ceasing to talk and bustle, in a state of great excite- 
ment, Mr. Boffin directed the removal and arrangement of 
the books, appearing to be in some sort beside himself until 
they were all deposited on the floor, and the cab was dis- 
missed. 

“There!” said Mr. Boffin, gloating over them. “There 
they are, like the four-and- twenty fiddlers — all of a row. 
Get on your spectacles, Wegg; I know where to find the 
best of ’em, and we’ll have a taste at once of what we have 
got before us. What’s your friend’s name? ” 

Mr. Wegg presented his friend as Mr. Venus. 

“ Eh ? ” cried Mr. Boffin, catching at the name. “ Of 
Clerkenwell ? ” 

'“ Of Clerkenwell, sir,” said Mr. Venus. 

“ Why, I’ve heard of you,” cried Mr. Boffin. “ I heard of 
you in the old man’s time. You knew him. Did you ever 
buy anything of him ? ” With piercing eagerness. 

“No, sir,” returned Venus. 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN WORSE COMPANY 543 


“ But he showed you things; didn’t he? ” 

Mr. Venus, with a glance at his friend, replied in the 
affirmative. 

“ What did he show you? ” asked Mr. Boffin, putting his 
hands behind him, and eagerly advancing his head. “ Did 
he show you boxes, little cabinets, pocket-books, parcels, 
anything locked or sealed, anything tied up? ” 

Mr. Venus shook his head. 

“ Are you a judge of china? ” 

Mr. Venus again shook his head. 

“ Because if he had ever showed you a teapot, I should be 
glad to know of it,” said Mr. Boffin. And then, with his 
right hand at his lips, repeated thoughtfully, “A Teapot, 
a Teapot,” and glanced over the books on the floor, as if 
he knew there was something interesting connected with a 
teapot somewhere among them. 

Mr. Wegg and Mr. Venus looked at one another wonder- 
ingly: and Mr. Wegg, in fitting on his spectacles, opened his 
eyes wide over their rims, and tapped the side of his nose : as 
an admonition to Venus to keep himself generally wide awake. 

“ A Teapot,” repeated Mr. Boffin, continuing to muse and 
survey the books; “ a Teapot, a Teapot. Are you ready, 
Wegg?” 

“ I am at your service, sir,” replied that gentleman, taking 
his usual seat on the usual settle, and poking his wooden leg 
under the table before it. “ Mr. Venus, would you make 
yourself useful, and take a seat beside me, sir, for the con- 
veniency of snuffing the candles ? ” 

Venus complying with the invitation while it was yet being 
given, Silas pegged at him with his wooden leg to call his 
particular attention to Mr. Boffin standing musing before the 
fire, in the space between the two settles. 

“Hem! Ahem!” coughed Mr. Wegg to attract his em- 
ployer’s attention. “ Would you wish to commence with an 
Animal, sir — from the Register?” 

“ No,” said Mr. Boffin, “ no, Wegg.” With that, producing 
a little book from his breast-pocket, he handed it with great 
care to the literary gentleman, and inquired, “ What do you 
call that, Wegg? ” 

“ This, sir,” replied Silas, adjusting his spectacles, and 


544 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


referring to the title-page, “ is Merry weather’s Lives and 
Anecdotes of Misers. Mr. Venus, would you make yourself 
useful and draw the candles a little nearer, sir?” This to 
have a special opportunity of bestowing a stare upon his 
comrade. 

“Which of ’em have you got in that lot?” asked Mr. 
Boffin. “ Can you find out pretty easy? ” 

“ Well, sir,” replied Silas, turning to the table of contents 
and slowly fluttering the leaves of the book, “ I should say 
they must be pretty well all here, sir; here’s a large assort- 
ment, sir; my eye catches John Overs, sir, John Little, sir, 
Dick Jarrel, John Elwes, the Reverend Mr. Jones of Blew- 
bury. Vulture Hopkins, Daniel Dancer ” 

“ Give us Dancer, Wegg,” said Mr. Boffin. 

With another stare at his comrade, Silas sought and found 
the place. 

“ Page a hundred and nine, Mr. Boffin. Chapter eight. 
Contents of chapter, ‘ His birth and estate. His garments 
and outward appearance. Miss Dancer and her feminine 
graces. The Miser’s Mansion. The finding of a treasure. 
The Story of the Mutton Pies. A Miser’s Idea of Death. 
Bob, the Miser’s cur. Griffiths and his Master. How to 
turn a penny. A substitute for a Fire. The Advantages of 
keeping a Snuff-box. The Miser dies without a Shirt. The 
Treasures of a Dunghill ” 

“ Eh? What’s that? ” demanded Mr. Boffin. 

“ ‘ The Treasures,’ sir,” repeated Silas, reading very dis- 
tinctly, “ ‘ of a Dunghill.’ Mr. Venus, sir, would you obleege 
with the snuffers ? ” This to secure attention to his adding 
with his lips only, “ Mounds!” 

Mr. Boffin drew an arm-chair into the space where he 
stood, and said, seating himself and slyly rubbing his hands: 

“ Give us Dancer.” 

Mr. Wegg pursued the biography of that eminent man 
through its various phases of avarice and dirt, through Miss 
Dancer’s death on a sick regimen of cold dumpling, and 
through Mr. Dancer’s keeping his rags together with a hay- 
band, and warming his dinner by sitting upon it, down to 
the consolatory incident of his dying naked in a sack. After 
which he read on as follows: 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN WORSE COMPANY 545 


“ ‘ The house, or rather the heap of ruins, in which Mr. 
Dancer lived, and which at his death devolved to the right 
of Captain Holmes, was a most miserable, decayed building, 
for it had not been repaired for more than half a century.' ” 
(Here Mr. Wegg eyed his comrade and the room in which 
they sat: which had not been repaired for a long time.) 

“ ‘ But though poor in external structure, the ruinous 
fabric was very rich in the interior. It took many weeks to 
explore its whole contents, and Captain Holmes found it a 
very agreeable task to dive into the miser’s secret hoards.' " 
(Here Mr. Wegg repeated ‘ secret hoards,' and pegged his 
comrade again.) 

“ ‘ One of Mr. Dancer’s richest escretoires was found to be 
a dungheap in the cowhouse; a sum but little short of two 
thousand five hundred pounds was contained in this rich 
piece of manure; and in an old jacket, carefully tied, and 
strongly nailed down to the manger, in bank notes and gold 
were found five hundred pounds more.” 

(Here Mr. Wegg’s wooden leg started forward under the 
table, and slowly elevated itself as he read on.) 

“ ‘ Several bowls were discovered filled with guineas and 
half-guineas ; and at different times on searching the corners 
of the house they found various parcels of bank notes. Some 
were crammed into the crevices of the wall; ' ” 

(Here Mr. Venus looked at the wall.) 

“ ^ Bundles were hid under the cushions and covers of the 
chairs; ' '' 

(Here Mr. Venus looked under himself on the settle.) 

“ ‘ Some were reposing snugly at the back of the drawers; 
and notes amounting to six hundred pounds were found 
neatly doubled up in the inside of an old teapot. In the 
stable the Captain found jugs full of old dollars and shillings. 
The chimney was not left unsearched, and paid very well for 
the trouble; for in nineteen different holes, all filled with 
soot, were found various sums of money, amounting together 
to more than two hundred pounds.' ” 

On the way to this crisis Mr. Wegg's wooden leg had 
gradually elevated itself more and more, and he had nudged 
Mr. Venus with his opposite elbow deeper and deeper, until 
at length the preservation of his balance became incompatible 


54G 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


with the two actions, and he now dropped over sideways upon 
that gentleman, squeezing him against the settle’s edge. Nor 
did either of the two, for some few seconds, make any effort 
to recover himself; both remaining in a kind of pecuniary 
swoon. 

But the sight of Mr. Boffin sitting in the arm-chair hugging 
himself, with his eyes upon the fire, acted as a restorative. 
Counterfeiting a sneeze to cover their movements, Mr. Wegg, 
with a spasmodic “ Tish-ho! ” pulled himself and Mr. Venus 
up in a masterly manner. 

“ Let’s have some more,” said Mr. Boffin, hungrily. 

“ John Elwes is the next, sir. Is it your pleasure to take 
John Elwes?” 

“ Ah! ” said Mr. Boffin. “ Let’s hear what John did.” 

He did not appear to have hidden anything, so went off 
rather flatly. But an exemplary lady named Wilcocks, who 
had stowed away gold and silver in a pickle-pot in a clock- 
case, a canister-full of treasure in a hole under her stairs, and 
a quantity of money in an old rat-trap, revived the interest. 
To her succeeded another lady, claiming to be a pauper, 
whose wealth was found wrapped up in little scraps of paper 
and old rag. To her, another lady, applewoman by trade, 
who had saved a fortune of ten thousand pounds and hidden 
it “ here and there, in cracks and corners, behind bricks 
and under the flooring.” To her, a French gentleman, who 
had crammed up his chimney, rather to the detriment of 
its drawing powers, “ a leather valise, containing twenty 
thousand francs, gold coins, and a large quantity of precious 
stones,” as discovered by a chimney-sweep after his death. 
By these steps Mr. Wegg arrived at a concluding instance 
of the human Magpie: 

“ ‘ Many years ago, there lived at Cambridge a miserly 
old couple of the name of Jardine: they had two sons: the 
father was a perfect miser, and at his death one thousand 
guineas were discovered secreted in his bed. The two sons 
grew up as parsimonious as their sire. When about twenty 
years of age, they commenced business at Cambridge as 
drapers, and they continued there until their death. The 
establishment of the Messrs. Jardine was the most dirty of 
all the shops in Cambridge. Customers seldom went in to 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN WORSE COMPANY 547 

purchase, except perhaps out of curiosity. The brothers 
were most disreputable-looking beings; for, although sur- 
rounded with gay apparel as their staple in trade, they wore 
the most filthy rags themselves. It is said that they had no 
bed, and, to save the expense of one, always slept on a bundle 
of packing-cloths under the counter. In their housekeeping 
they were penurious in the extreme. A joint of meat did not 
grace their board for twenty years. Yet when the first of the 
brothers died, the other, much to his surprise, found large 
sums of money which had been secreted even from him.^ 

“ There!” cried Mr. Boffin. “ Even from him, you see! 
There was only two of 'em, and yet one of ’em hid from the 
other.” 

Mr. Venus, who since his introduction to the French 
gentleman had been stooping to peer up the chimney, had 
his attention recalled by the last sentence, and took the 
liberty of repeating it. 

“ Do you like it ? ” asked Mr. Boffin, turning suddenly. 

I beg your pardon, sir? ” 

“ Do you like what Wegg’s been a- reading ? ” 

Mr. Venus answered that he found it extremely interesting. 

Then come again,” said Mr. Boffin, “ and hear some 
more. Come when you like; come the day after to-morrow, 
half an hour sooner. There’s plenty more; there’s no end to 
it.” 

Mr. Venus expressed his acknowledgments and accepted 
the invitation. 

It’s wonderful what’s been hid, at one time and another,” 
said Mr. Boflfin, ruminating; “ truly wonderful.” 

“ Meaning, sir,” observed Wegg, with a propitiatory face 
to draw him out, and with another peg at his friend and 
brother, “ in the way of money ? ” 

Money,” said Mr. Boffin. “Ah! And papers.” 

Mr. Wegg, in a languid transport, again dropped over on 
Mr. Venus, and again recovering himself, masked his emotions 
with a sneeze. 

“Tish-ho! Did you say papers too, sir? Been hidden, 
sir?” 

“ Hidden and forgot,” said Mr. Boffin. “ Why, the book- 
seller that sold me the Wonderful Museum — where’s the 


548 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Wonderful Museum? ” He was on his knees on the floor in 
a moment, groping eagerly among the books. 

“ Can I assist you, sir? ” asked Wegg. 

“ No, I have got it; here it is,” said Mr. Boffin, dusting it 
with the sleeve of his coat. “ Wollume four. I know it was 
the fourth wollume, that the bookseller read it to me out of. 
Look for it, Wegg.” 

Silas took the book and turned the leaves. 

“Remarkable petrefaction, sir?” 

“ No, that’s not it,” said Mr. Boffin. “ It can’t have been 
a petrefaction.” 

“ Memoirs of General John Reid, commonly called The 
Walking Rushlight, sir? With portrait.” 

“ No, nor yet him,” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ Remarkable case of a person who swallowed a crown- 
piece, sir?” 

“ To hide it? ” asked Mr. Boffin. 

“ Why, no, sir,” replied Wegg, consulting the text, “ it 
appears to have been done by accident. Oh! This next 
must be it. ^ Singular discovery of a will, lost twenty-one 
years.’ ” 

“ That’s it! ” cried Mr. Boffin. “ Read that.” 

“ ‘ A most extraordinary case,’ ” read Silas Wegg aloud, 
“ * was tried at the last Maryborough assizes in Ireland. It 
was briefly this. Robert Baldwin, in March, 1782, made his 
will, in which he devised the lands now in question to the 
children of his youngest son ; soon after which his faculties 
failed him, and he became altogether childish, and died, 
above eighty years old. The defendant, the eldest son, 
im.mediately afterwards gave out that his father had destroyed 
the will, and no will being found, he entered into possession 
of the lands in question, and so matters remained for twenty- 
one years, the whole family during all that time believing 
that the father had died without a will. But after twenty- 
one years the defendant’s wife died, and he very soon after- 
wards, at the age of seventy-eight, married a very young 
woman: which caused some anxiety to his two sons, whose 
poignant expressions of this feeling so exasperated their 
father, that he in his resentment executed a will to disinherit 
his eldest son, and in his fit of anger showed it to his second 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN WORSE COMPANY 549 


son, who instantly determined to get at it, and destroy it, 
in order to preserve the property to his brother. With this 
view, he broke open his father’s desk, where he found — 
not his father’s will which he sought after, but the will of 
his grandfather, which was then altogether forgotten in the 
family.’ ” 

There! ” said Mr. Boffin. “ See what men put away and 
forget, or mean to destroy, and don’t!” He then added in 
a slow tone, “As — ton — ish — ing!” And as he rolled his 
eyes all round the room, Wegg and Venus likewise rolled 
their eyes all round the room. And then Wegg, singly, 
fixed his eyes on Mr. Boffin looking at the fire again; as if 
he had a mind to spring upon him and demand his thoughts 
or his life. 

“ However, time’s up for to-night,” said Mr. Boffin, waving 
his hand after a silence. “ More, the day after to-morrow. 
Range the books upon the shelves, Wegg. I dare say Mr. 
Venus will be so kind as to help you.” 

While speaking, he thrust his hand into the breast of his 
outer coat, and struggled with some object there that was 
too large to be got out easily. What was the stupefaction 
of the friendly movers when this object at last emerging, 
proved to be a much dilapidated dark lantern! 

Without at all noticing the effect produced by this little 
instrument, Mr. Boffin stood it on his knee, and, producing 
a box of matches, deliberately lighted the candle in the 
lantern, blew out the kindled match, and cast the end into 
the fire. “ I’m going, Wegg,” he then announced, “ to take 
a turn about the place and round the yard. I don’t want 
you. Me and this same lantern have taken hundreds — 
thousands — of such turns in our time together.” 

“But I couldn’t think, sir — not on any account, I 
couldn’t,” — Wegg was politely beginning, when Mr. Boffin, 
who had risen and was going towards the door, stopped : 

“ I have told you that I don’t want you, Wegg.” 

Wegg looked intelligently thoughtful, as if that had not 
occurred to his mind until he now brought it’ to bear on the 
circumstance. He had nothing for it but to let Mr. Boffin 
go out and shut the door behind him. But the instant he 
was on the other side of it, Wegg clutched Venus with both 


550 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


hands, and said in a choking whisper, as if he were being 
strangled : 

“ Mr. Venus, he must be followed, he must be watched, he 
mustn’t be lost sight of for a moment.” 

“ Why mustn’t he? ” asked Venus, also strangling. 

“ Comrade, you might have noticed I was a little elewated 
in spirits when you come in to-night. I’ve found some- 
thing.” 

“ What have you found ? ” asked Venus, elutching him 
with both hands, so that they stood interlocked like a couple 
of preposterous gladiators. 

“ There’s no time to tell you now. I think he must have 
gone to look for it. We must have an eye upon him in- 
stantly.” 

Releasing each other, they crept to the door, opened it 
softly, and peeped out. It was a cloudy night, and the black 
shadow of the Mounds made the dark yard darker. “ If not 
a double swindler,” whispered Wegg, “ why a dark lantern ? 
We could have seen what he w’as about, if he had carried 
a light one. Softly, this way.” 

Cautiously along the path that was bordered by fragments 
of erockery set in ashes, the two stole after him. They could 
hear him at his peculiar trot, crushing the loose cinders as 
he went. “ He knows the place by heart,” muttered Silas, 
“and don’t need to turn his lantern on, confound him!” 
But he did turn it on, almost in that same instant, and 
flashed its light upon the first of the Mounds. 

“ Is that the spot? ” asked Venus in a whisper. 

“ He’s warm,” said Silas in the same tone. “ He’s precious 
warm. He’s close. I think he must be going to look for it. 
What’s that he’s got in his hand ? ” 

“ A shovel,” answered Venus. “ And he knows how to use 
it, remember, fifty times as well as either of us.” 

“ If he looks for it and misses it, partner,” suggested Wegg, 
“what shall we do?” 

“ First of all, wait till he does,” said Venus. 

Discreet advice too, for he darkened his lantern again, and 
the Mound turned black. After a few seconds, he turned 
the light on once more, and was seen standing at the foot of 
the second Mound, slowly raising the lantern little by little 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN WORSE COMPANY 551 

until he held it up at arm’s length, as if he were examining 
the condition of the whole surface. 

That can’t be the spot too,” said Venus. 

“ No,” said Wegg, “ he’s getting cold.” 

It strikes me,” whispered Venus, ‘‘ that he wants to find 
out whether any one has been groping about there.” 

“ Hush! ” returned Wegg, “ he’s getting colder and colder! 

— Now he’s freezing! ” 

This exclamation was elicited by his having turned the 
lantern off again, and on again, and being visible at the foot 
of the third Mound. 

“ Why, he’s going up it!” said Venus. 

“ Shovel and all! ” said Wegg. 

At a nimble trot, as if the shovel over his shoulder stimu- 
lated him by reviving old associations, Mr. Boffin ascended 
the “ serpentining walk,” up the Mound which he had 
described to Silas Wegg on the occasion of their beginning 
to decline and fall. On striking into it he turned his lantern 
off. The two followed him, stooping low, so that their 
figures might make no mark in relief against the sky when 
he should turn his lantern on again. Mr. Venus took the 
lead, towing Mr. Wegg, in order that his refractory leg might 
be promptly extricated from any pitfalls it should dig for 
itself. They could just make out that the Golden Dust- 
man stopped to breathe. Of course they stopped too, in- 
stantly. 

This is his own Mound,” whispered Wegg, as he recovered 
his wind, this one.” 

Why, all three are his own,” returned Venus. 

So he thinks; but he’s used to call this his own, because 
it’s the one first left to him; the one that was his legacy 
when it was all he took under the will.” 

“ When he shows his light,” said Venus, keeping watch 
upon his dusky figure all the time, “ drop lower and keep 
closer,” 

He went on again, and they followed again. Gaining the 
top of the Mound, he turned on his light — but only partially 

— and stood it on the ground. A bare lopsided, weather- 
beaten pole was planted in the ashes there, and had been 
there many a year. Hard by this pole his lantern stood; 


552 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


lighting a few feet of the lower part of it and a little of the 
ashy surface around, and then casting off a purposeless little 
clear trail of light into the air. 

“ He can never be going to dig up the pole! ” whispered 
Venus as they dropped low and kept close. 

“ Perhaps it’s holler and full of something,” whispered 
Wegg. 

He was going to dig, with whatsoever object, for he tucked 
up his cuffs and spat on his hands, and then went at it like 
an old digger as he was. He had no design upon the pole, 
except that he measured a shovel’s length from it before 
beginning, nor was it his purpose to dig deep. Some dozen 
or so of expert strokes sufficed. Then he stopped, looked 
down into the cavity, bent over it, and took out what appeared 
to be an ordinary case-bottle; one of those squat, high- 
shouldered, short-necked glass bottles which the Dutchman 
is said to keep his Courage in. As soon as he had done 
this, he turned off his lantern, and they could hear that he 
was filling up the hole in the dark. The ashes being easily 
moved by a skilful hand, the spies took this as a hint to make 
off in good time. Accordingly, Mr. Venus slipped past Mr. 
Wegg and towed him down. But Mr. Wegg’s descent was 
not accomplished without some personal inconvenience, for 
his self-willed leg sticking into the ashes about half-way 
down, and time pressing, Mr. Venus took the liberty of 
hauling him from his tether by the collar: which occasioned 
him to make the rest of the journey on his back, with his 
head enveloped in the skirts of his coat, and his wooden leg 
coming last, like a drag. So flustered was Mr. Wegg by this 
mode of travelling, that when he was set on the level ground 
with his intellectual developments uppermost, he was quite 
unconscious of his bearings, and had not the least idea where 
his place of residence was to be found, until Mr. Venus 
shoved him into it. Even then he staggered round and 
round, weakly staring about him, until Mr. Venus with a hard 
brush brushed his senses into him and the dust out of him. 

Mr. Boffin came down leisurely, for this brushing process 
had been well accomplished, and Mr. Venus had had time 
to take his breath, before he reappeared. That he had the 
bottle somewhere about him could not be doubted; where, 







J 4 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN IN WORSE COMPANY 553 

was not so clear. He wore a large rough coat, buttoned over, 
and it might be in any one of half-a-dozen pockets. 

‘‘ What’s the matter, Wegg? ” said Mr. Boffin. “ You are 
as pale as a candle.” 

Mr. Wegg replied, with literal exactness, that he felt as if 
he had had a turn. 

Bile,” said Mr. Boffin, blowing out the light in the 
lantern, shutting it up, and stowing it away in the breast of 
his coat as before. “ Are you subject to bile, Wegg? ” 

Mr. Wegg again replied, with strict adherence to truth, 
that he didn’t think he had ever had a similar sensation in 
his head, to anything like the same extent. 

Physic yourself to-morrow, Wegg,” said Mr. Boffin, “ to 
be in order for next night. By-the-bye, this neighbourhood 
is going to have a loss, Wegg.” 

“A loss, sir?” 

“ Going to lose the Mounds.” 

The friendly movers made such an obvious effort not to 
look at one another, that they might as well have stared at 
one another with ail their might. 

“ Have you parted with them, Mr. Boffin? ” asked Silas. 

“ Yes; they’re going. Mine’s as good as gone already.” 

“You mean the little one of the three, with the pole atop, 
sir?” 

“ Yes.” said Mr. Boffin, rubbing his ear in his old way, 
with that new touch of craftiness added to it. “ It has 
fetched a penny. It’ll begin to be carted off to-morrow.” 

“ Have you been out to take leave of your old friend, sir ? ” 
asked Silas, jocosely. 

“ No,” said Mr. Boffin. “ What the devil put that in your 
head?” 

He was so sudden and rough, that Wegg, who had been 
hovering closer and closer to his skirts, dispatching the back 
of his hand on exploring expeditions in search of the bottle’s 
surface, retired two or three paces. 

“ No offence, sir,” said Wegg, humbly. “ No offence.” 

Mr. Boffin eyed him as a dog might eye another dog who 
wanted his bone; and actually retorted with a low growl, as 
the dog might have retorted. 

“ Good night,” he said, after having sunk into a moody 


554 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


silence, with his hands clasped behind him, and his eyes 
suspiciously wandering about Wegg. — “ Nol Stop there. 
I know the way out, and I want no light.” 

Avarice, and the evening’s legends of avarice, and the 
inflammatory effect of what he had seen, and perhaps the 
rush of his ill-conditioned blood to his brain in his descent, 
wrought Silas Wegg to such a pitch of insatiable appetite, 
that when the door closed he made a swoop at it and drew 
Venus along with him. 

“ He mustn’t go,” he cried. “ We mustn’t let him go! 
He has got that bottle about him. We must have that bottle.” 

“ Why, you wouldn’t take it by force ? ” said Venus, 
restraining him. 

“ Wouldn’t I ? Yes, I would. I’d take it by any force, 
I’d have it at any price! Are you so afraid of one old man 
as to let him go, you coward ? ” 

“I am so afraid of you as not to let you go,” muttered 
Venus, sturdily clasping him in his arms. 

“ Did you hear him? ” retorted Wegg. “ Did you hear 
him say that he was resolved to disappoint us? Did you 
hear him say, you cur, that he was going to have the Mounds 
cleared off, when no doubt the whole place will be rummaged ? 
If you haven’t the spirit of a mouse to defend your rights, 
I have. Let me go after him.” 

As in his wildness he was making a strong struggle for 
it, Mr. Venus deemed it expedient to lift him, throw him, 
and fall with him ; well knowing that, once down, he would 
not be up again easily with his wooden leg. So they both 
rolled on the floor, and, as they did so, Mr. Boffin shut 
the gate. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION 

The friendly movers sat upright on the floor, panting and 
eyeing one another, after Mr. Boffin had slammed the gate 
and gone away. In the weak eyes of Venus, and in every 
reddish dust-coloured hair in his shock of hair, there was a 
marked distrust of Wegg and an alertness to fly at him 
on perceiving the smallest occasion. In the hard-grained 
face of Wegg, and in his stiff knotty figure (he looked like 
a German wooden toy), there was expressed a politic con- 
ciliation, which had no spontaneity in it. Both were flushed, 
flustered, and rumpled, by the late scuffle; and Wegg, in 
coming to the ground, had received a humming knock on 
the back of his devoted head, which caused him still to rub 
it with an air of having been highly — but disagreeably — 
astonished. Each was silent for some time, leaving it to 
the other to begin. 

“ Brother,” said Wegg, at length breaking the silence, 
“ you were right, and I was wrong. I forgot myself.” 

Mr. Venus knowingly cocked his shock of hair, as rather 
thinking Mr. Wegg had remembered himself, in respect of 
appearing without any disguise. 

“But, comrade,” pursued Wegg, “ it was never your lot 
to know Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, nor 
Uncle Parker.” 

Mr. Venus admitted that he had never known those 
distinguished persons, and added, in effect, that he had never 
so much as desired the honour of their acquaintance. 

“ Don’t say that, comrade,” retorted Wegg: “ No, don’t 
say that! Because, without having known them, you never 
can fully know what it is to be stimulated to frenzy by the 
sight of the Usurper.” 


556 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Offering these excusatory words as if they reflected great 
credit on himself, Mr. Wegg impelled himself with his hands 
towards a, chair in a corner of the room, and there, after a 
variety of awkward gambols, attained a perpendicular posi- 
tion. Mr. Venus also rose. 

“ Comrade,” said Wegg, “ take a seat. Comrade, what a 
speaking countenance is yours ! ” 

Mr. Venus involuntarily smoothed his countenance, and 
looked at his hand, as if to see whether any of its speaking 
properties came off. 

For clearly do I know% mark you,” pursued Wegg, 
pointing his words with his forefinger, “ clearly do I know 
what question your expressive features puts to me.” 

“ What question? ” said Venus. 

“ The question,” returned Wegg, with a sort of joyful 
affability, “ why I didn’t mention sooner that I had found 
something. Says your speaking countenance to me : ‘ Why 
didn’t you communicate that when I first come in this even- 
ing? Why did you keep it back till you thought Mr. Boffin 
had come to look for the article?’ Your speaking counte- 
nance,” said Wegg, “ puts it plainer than language. Now 
you can’t read in my face what answer I give ? ” 

“ No, I can’t,” said Venus. 

“I knew it! And why not?” returned Wegg, with the 
same joyful candour. “ Because I lay no claims to a speaking 
countenance. Because I am well aware of my deficiencies. 
All men are not gifted alike. But I can answer in words. 
And in what words? These. I wanted to give you a de- 
lightful sap — ^pur — ize!” 

Having thus elongated and emphasised the word Surprise, 
Mr. Wegg shook his friend and brother by both hands, and 
then clapped him on both knees, like an affectionate patron 
who entreated him not to mention so small a service as that 
which it had been his happy privilege to render. 

“ Your speaking countenance,” said Wegg, “ being an- 
swered to its satisfaction, only asks then, ‘ What have you 
found ? ’ Why, I hear it say the words I ” 

“'Well?” retorted Venus, snappishly, after waiting in 
vain. “ If you hear it say the words, why don’t you answer 
it?” 


THE FRIENDLY MOVERS STRONG POSITION 


557 


“Hear me out!” said Wegg. “I’m a-going to. Hear 
me out! Man and brother, partner in feelings equally with 
undertakings and actions, I have found a cash-box.” 

“Where?” 

“ — Hear me out! ” said Wegg. (He tried to reserve what- 
ever he could, and, whenever disclosure was forced upon him, 
broke into a radiant gush of Hear me out.) “ On a certain 
day, sir ” 

“When?” said Venus, bluntly. 

“ N — no,” returned Wegg, shaking his head at once ob- 
servantly, thoughtfully, and playfully. “ No, sir! That’s not 
your expressive countenance which asks that question. 
That’s your voice; merely your voice. To proceed. On 
a certain day, sir, I happened to be walking in the yard — 
taking my lonely round — for in the words of a friend of 
my own family, the author of All’s Well arranged as a duet: 

‘ Deserted, as you will remember, Mr. Venus, by the waning moon. 

When stars, it will occur to you before I mention it, proclaim 
night’s cheerless noon. 

On tower, fort, or tented ground. 

The sentry walks his lonely round. 

The sentry walks; ’ 

— under those circumstances, sir, I happened to be walking in 
the yard early one afternoon, and happened to have an iron 
rod in my hand, with which I have been sometimes ac- 
customed to beguile the monotony of a literary life, when 
I struck it against an object not necessary to trouble you by 
naming ” 

“ It is necessary. What object? ” demanded Venus, in a 
wrathful tone. 

“Hear me out!” said Wegg. “The Pump. — When I 
struck it against the Pump, and found, not only that the top 
was loose and opened with a lid, but that something in it 
rattled. That something, comrade, I discovered to be a small 
flat oblong cash-box. Shall I say it was disappintingly 
light?” 

“ There were papers in it ? ” said Venus. 

“ There your expressive countenance speaks indeed I ” 
cried Wegg. “A paper. The box was locked, tied up. 


558 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


and sealed, and on the outside was a parchment label, with 
the writing, ‘ my will, John harmon, temporarily de- 
posited here/ ” 

“ We must know its contents,” said Venus. 

“ — Hear me out! ” cried Wegg. “ I said so, and I broke 
the box open.” 

Without coming to me ! ” exclaimed Venus. 

“ Exactly so, sir! ” returned Wegg, blandly and buoyantly. 
“ I see I take you with me! Hear, hear, hear! Resolved, as 
your discriminating good sense perceives, that if you was to 
have a sap — pur — ize, it should be a complete one! Well, 
sir. And so, as you have honoured me by anticipating, 1 
examined the document. Regularly executed, regularly wit- 
nessed, very short. Inasmuch as he has never made friends, 
and has ever had a rebellious family, he, John Harmon, gives 
to Nicodemus Boffin the Little Mound, which is quite enough 
for him, and gives the whole rest and residue of his property 
to the Crown.” 

“ The date of the will that has been proved must be 
looked to,” remarked Venus. ‘‘ It may be later than this 
one ” 

“ Hear me out! ” cried Wegg. “ I said so. I paid a shilling 
(never mind your sixpence of it) to look up that will. Brother, 
that will is dated months before this will. And now, as a 
fellow-man, and as a partner in a friendly move,” added Wegg, 
benignantly taking him by both hands again, and clapping 
him on both knees again, “ say, have I completed my labour 
of love to your perfect satisfaction, and are you sap — pur — 
IZED?” 

Mr. Venus contemplated his fellow-man and partner with 
doubting eyes, and then rejoined stiffly: 

“ This is great news indeed, Mr. Wegg. There’s no denying 
it But I could have wished you had told it me before you 
got your fright to-night, and I could have wished you had 
ever asked me as your partner what we were to do, before 
you thought you were dividing a responsibility.” 

“ — Hear me out! ” cried Wegg. “ I knew you was a-going 
to say so. But alone I bore the anxiety, and alone I’ll bear 
the blame! ” This with an air of great magnanimity. 

“ Now,” said Venus. Let’s see this will and this box.” 


THE FRIENDLY MOVE’s STRONG POSITION 559 

“ Do I understand, brother,” returned Wegg with con- 
siderable reluctance, “ that it is your wish to see this will 
and this ? ” 

Mr. Venus smote the table with his hand. 

“ — Hear me out! ” said Wegg. “ Hear me out! I’ll go 
and fetch ’em.” 

After being some time absent, as if in his covetousness he 
could hardly make up his mind to produce the treasure to 
his partner, he returned with an old leathern hat-box, into 
which he had put the other box, for the better preservation 
of commonplace appearances, and for the disarming of sus- 
picion. “ But I don’t half like opening it here,” said Silas in 
a low voice, looking around: “ he might come back, he may 
not be gone; we don’t know what he may be up to, after 
what we’ve seen.” 

“ There’s something in that,” assented Venus. Come to 
my place.” 

Jealous of the custody of the box, and yet fearful of opening 
it under the existing circumstances, Wegg hesitated. “ Come, 
I tell you,” repeated Venus, chafing, “ to my place.” Not 
very well seeing his way to a refusal, Mr. Wegg then rejoined 
in a gush, “ — Hear me out! — Certainly.” So he locked up 
the Bower and they set forth: Mr. Venus taking his arm, 
and keeping it with remarkable tenacity. 

They found the usual dim light burning in the window 
of Mr. Venus’s establishment, imperfectly disclosing to the 
public the usual pair of preserved frogs, sword in hand, with 
their point of honour still unsettled. Mr. Venus had closed 
his shop door on coming out, and now opened it with the 
key and shut it again as soon as they were within; but not 
before he had put up and barred the shutters of the shop 
window. “ No one can get in without being let in,” said he 
then, “ and we couldn’t be more snug than here.” So he 
raked together the yet warm cinders in the rusty grate, and 
made a fire, and trimmed the candle on the little counter. 
As the fire cast its flickering gleams here and there upon 
the dark greasy walls; the Hindoo baby, the African baby, 
the articulated English baby, the assortment of skulls, and the 
rest of the collection, came starting to their various stations as 
if they had all been out, like their master, and were punctual 


560 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


in a general rendezvous to assist at the secret. The French 
gentleman had grown considerably since Mr. Wegg last saw 
him, being now accommodated with a pair of legs and a 
head, though his arms were yet in abeyance. To whomsoever 
the head had originally belonged, Silas Wegg would have 
regarded it as a personal favour if he had not cut quite so 
many teeth. 

Silas took his seat in silence on the wooden box before the 
fire, and Venus dropping into his low chair, produced from 
among his skeleton hands, his tea-tray and teacups, and put 
the kettle on. Silas inwardly approved of these preparations, 
trusting they might end in Mr. Venus’s diluting his intellect. 

“ Now, sir,” said Venus, “ all is safe and quiet. Let us 
see this discovery.” 

With still reluctant hands, and not without several glances 
towards the skeleton hands, as if he mistrusted that a couple 
of them might spring forth and clutch the document, Wegg 
opened the hat-box and revealed the cash-box, opened the 
cash-box and revealed the will. He held a corner of it tight, 
while Venus, taking hold of another corner, searchingly and 
attentively read it. 

“ Was I correct in my account of it, partner?” said Mr. 
Wegg, at length. 

“ Partner, you were,” said Mr. Venus. 

Mr. Wegg thereupon made an easy, graceful movement, 
as though he would fold it up; but Mr. Venus held on by 
his corner. 

“ No, sir,” said Mr. Venus, winking his weak eyes and 
shaking his head. “ No, partner. The question is now 
brought up, who is going to take care of this. Do you know 
who is going to take care of this, partner? ” 

“ I am,” said Wegg. 

“ Oh dear no, partner,” retorted Venus. That’s a mis- 
take. I am. Now look here, Mr. Wegg. I don’t want to 
have any words with you, and still less do I want to have 
any anatomical pursuits with you.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” said Wegg, quickly. 

I mean, partner,” replied Venus, slowly, “ that it’s hardly 
possible for a man to feel in a more amiable state towards 
another man than I do towards you at this present moment 


THE FRIENDLY MOVERS STRONG POSITION 561 


But I am on my own ground, I am surrounded by the trophies 
of my art, and my tools is very handy.” 

“ What do you mean, Mr. Venus? ” asked Wegg again. 

I am surrounded, as I have observed,” said Mr. Venus, 
placidly, “ by the trophies of my art. They are numerous, 
my stock of human warious is large, the shop is pretty well 
crammed, and I don’t just now want any more trophies 
of my art. But I like my art, and I know how to exercise 
my art.” 

“ No man better,” assented Mr. Wegg, with a somewhat 
staggered air. 

“ There’s the Miscellanies of several human specimens,” 
said Venus, ‘‘ (though you mightn’t think it), in the box on 
which you’re sitting. There’s the Miscellanies of several 
human specimens in the lovely compo-one behind the door; ” 
with a nod towards the French gentleman. “ It still wants a 
pair of arms. I don* t say that I’m in any hurry for ’em.” 

You must be wandering in your mind, partner,” Silas 
remonstrated. 

“ You’ll excuse me if I wander,” returned Venus; “ I am 
sometimes rather subject to it. I like my art, and I know 
how to exercise my art, and I mean to have the keeping of 
this document.” 

“ But what has that got to do with your art, partner?” 
asked Wegg, in an insinuating tone. 

Mr. Venus winked his chronically fatigued eyes both at 
once, and adjusting the kettle on the fire, remarked to himself, 
in a hollow voice, “ She’ll bile in a couple of minutes.” 

Silas Wegg glanced at the kettle, glanced at the shelves, 
glanced at the French gentleman behind the door, and shrank 
a little as he glanced at Mr. Venus winking his red eyes, 
and feeling in his waistcoat pocket — as for a lancet, say — 
with his unoccupied hand. He and Venus were necessarily 
seated close together, as each held a corner of the document, 
which was but a common sheet of paper. 

“ Partner,” said Wegg, even more insinuatingly than 
before, “ I propose that we cut it in half, and each keep 
a half.” 

Venus shook his shock of hair, as he replied, “ It wouldn’t 
do to mutilate it, partner. It might seem to be cancelled.” 


562 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


** Partner/' said Wegg, after a silence, during which 
they had contemplated one another, ‘‘ don’t your speaking 
countenance say that you’re a-going to suggest a middle 
course? ” 

Venus shook his shock of hair, as he replied, “ Partner, 
you have kept this paper from me once. You shall never 
keep it from me again. I offer you the box and the label 
to take care of, but I’ll take care of the paper.” 

Silas hesitated a little longer, and then suddenly releasing 
his corner, and resuming his buoyant and benignant tone, 
exclaimed, “ What’s life without trustfulness I What’s a 
fellow-man without honour! You’re welcome to it, partner, 
in a spirit of trust and confidence.” 

Continuing to wink his red eyes both together — but in a 
self-communing way, and without any show of triumph — 
Mr. Venus folded the paper now left in his hand, and locked 
it in a drawer behind him, and pocketed the key. He then 
proposed, “ A cup of tea, partner?” To which Mr. Wegg 
returned, “ Thank’ ee, partner,” and the tea was made and 
poured out. 

“ Next,” said Venus, blowing at his tea in his saucer, and 
looking over it at his confidential friend, “ comes the ques- 
tion, What’s the course to be pursued ? ” 

On this head, Silas Wegg had much to say. Silas had to 
say That, he would beg to remind his comrade, brother, and 
partner, of the impressive passages they had read that even- 
ing; of the evident parallel in Mr. Boffin’s mind between 
them and the late owner of the Bower, and the present 
circumstances of the Bower; of the bottle; and of the box. 
That, the fortunes of his brother and comrade, and of him- 
self, were evidently made, inasmuch as they had but to put 
their price upon this document, and get that price from the 
minion of fortune and the worm of the hour: who now 
appeared to be less of a minion and more of a worm than 
had been previously supposed. That, he considered it plain 
that such price was stateable in a single expressive word, 
and that word was, “Halves!” That, the question then 
arose when “ Halves! ” should be called. That, here he had 
a plan of action to recommend, with a conditional clause. 
That, the plan of action was that they should lie by with 


THE FRIENDLY MOVERS STRONG POSITION 563 


patience; that they should allow the Mounds to be gradually 
levelled and cleared away, while retaining to themselves 
their present opportunity of watching the process — whicli 
would be, he conceived, to put the trouble and cost of daily 
digging and delving upon somebody else, while they might 
nightly turn such complete disturbance of the dust to the 
account of their own private investigations; and that, when 
the Mounds were gone, and they had worked those chances 
for their own joint benefit solely, they should then, and not 
before, explode on the minion and worm. But here came 
the conditional clause, and to this he entreated the special 
attention of his comrade, brother, and partner. It was not 
to be borne that the minion and worm should carry off any 
of that property which was now to be regarded as their own 
property. When he, Mr. Wegg, had seen the minion sur- 
reptitiously making off with that bottle and its precious 
contents unknown, he had looked upon him in the light of 
a mere robber, and, as such, would have despoiled him of his 
ill-gotten gain, but for the judicious interference of his com- 
rade, brother, and partner. Therefore, the conditional clause 
he proposed was that, if the minion should return in his 
late sneaking manner, and if, being closely watched, he should 
be found to possess himself of anything, no matter what, 
the sharp sword impending over his head should be instantly 
shown him, he should be strictly examined as to what he 
knew or suspected, should be severely handled^ by them his 
masters, and should be kept in a state of abject moral bondage 
and slavery until the time when they should see fit to permit 
him to purchase his freedom at the price of half his posses- 
sions. If, said Mr. Wegg by way of peroration, he had erred 
in saying only “ Halves! ” he trusted to his comrade, brother, 
and partner not to hesitate to set him right, and to reprove 
his weakness. It might be more according to the rights of 
things, to say Two-thirds; it might be more according to the 
rights of things, to say Three-fourths. On those points he 
was ever open to correction. 

Mr. Venus, having wafted his attention to this discourse 
over three successive saucers of tea, signified his concurrence 
in the views advanced. Inspirited hereby, Mr. Wegg ex- 
tended his right hand, and declared it to be a hand which 


564 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


never yet Without entering into more minute particulars, 
Mr. Venus, sticking to his tea, briefly professed his belief, 
as polite forms required of him, that it was a hand which 
never yet. But contented himself with looking at it, and 
did not take it to his bosom. 

“ Brother,” said Wegg, when this happy understanding 
was established, “ I should like to ask you something. You 
remember the night when I first looked in here, and found 
you floating your powerful mind in tea ? ” 

Still swilling tea, Mr. Venus nodded assent. 

“ And there you sit, sir,” pursued Wegg with an air of 
thoughtful admiration, as if you had never left off! There 
you sit, sir, as if you had an unlimited capacity of assimi- 
lating the fragrant article! There you sit, sir, in the midst 
of your works, looking as if you’d been called upon for Home, 
Sweet Home, and was obleeging the company! 

‘ A exile from home splendour dazzles in vain, 

O give you your lowly Preparations again, 

The birds stuffed so sweetly that can’t be expected to come at your 
call, 

Give you these with the peace of mind dearer than all. 

Home, Home, Home, sweet HomeT 

— Be it ever,” added Mr. Wegg in prose as he glanced about 
the shop, “ ever so ghastly, all things considered there’s no 
place like it.” 

“ You said you’d like to ask something; but you haven’t 
asked it,” remarked Venus, very unsympathetic in manner. 

“ Your peace of mind,” said Wegg, offering condolence, 
“ your peace of mind was in a poor way that night. How's 
it going on? 75 it looking up at all ? ” 

“ She does not wish,” replied Mr. Venus with a comical 
mixture of indignant obstinacy and tender melancholy, “ to 
regard herself, nor yet to be regarded, in that particular light. 
There’s no more to be said.” 

“Ah, dear me, dear me!” exclaimed Wegg with a sigh, 
but eyeing him while pretending to keep him company in 
eyeing the fire, “such is woman! And I remember you 
said that night, sitting there as I sat here — said that night 
when your peace of mind was first laid low, that you had 
taken an interest in these very affairs. Such is coincidence ! ” 


THE FRIENDLY MOVERS STRONG POSITION 565 


“ Her father,” rejoined Venus, and then stopped to swallow 
more tea, “ her father was mixed up in them.” 

“You didn't mention her name, sir, I think?” observed 
Wegg, pensively. “ No, you didn’t mention her name that 
night.” 

“ Pleasant Riderhood.” 

“ In — deed I ” cried Wegg. “ Pleasant Riderhood. There’s 
something moving in the name. Pleasant. Dear me I 
Seems to express what she might have been, if she hadn’t 
made that unpleasant remark — and what she ain’t, in conse- 
quence of having made it. Would it at all pour balm into 
your wounds, Mr. Venus, to inquire how you came acquainted 
with her ? ” 

“ I was down at the water-side,” said Venus, taking an- 
other gulp of tea and mournfully winking at the fire — • 
“looking for parrots^’ — taking another gulp and stop- 
Ping. 

Mr. Wegg hinted, to jog his attention: “You could hardly 
have been out parrot-shooting, in the British climate, 
sir?” 

“ No, no, no,” said Venus fretfully. “ I was down at the 
water-side, looking for parrots brought home by sailors, to 
buy for stuffing.” 

“ Ay, ay, ay, sir! ” 

“ — And looking for a nice pair of rattlesnakes, to articu- 
late for a Museum — when I was doomed to fall in with her 
and deal with her. It was just at the time of that discov- 
ery in the river. Her father had seen the discovery being 
towed in the river, I made the popularity of the subject a 
reason for going back to improve the acquaintance, and 
I have never since been the man I was. My very bones is 
rendered flabby by brooding over it. If they could be brought 
to me loose, to sort, I should hardly have the face to claim 
’em as mine. To such an extent have I fallen off under 
it.” 

Mr. Wegg, less interested than he had been, glanced at 
one particular shelf in the dark. 

“ Why, I remember, Mr. Venus,” he said in a tone of 
friendly commiseration, “ (for I remember every word that 
falls from you, sir), I remember that you said that night, 


566 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


you had got up there — and then your words was, ‘ Never 
mind.’ ” 

“ — The parrot that I bought of her,” said Venus, with a 
despondent rise and fall of his eyes. Yes; there it lies on 
its side, dried up; except for its plumage, very like myself. 
I’ve never had the heart to prepare it, and I never shall 
have now.” 

With a disappointed face, Silas mentally consigned this 
parrot to regions more than tropical, and, seeming for the 
time to have lost his power of assuming an interest in the 
woes of Mr. Venus, fell to tightening his wooden leg as a 
preparation for departure: its gymnastic performances of 
that evening having severely tried its constitution. 

After Silas had left the shop, hat-box in hand, and had 
left Mr. Venus to lower himself to oblivion-point with the 
requisite weight of tea, it greatly preyed on his ingenuous 
mind that he had taken this artist into partnership at all. He 
bitterly felt that he had overreached himself in the be- 
ginning, by grasping at Mr. Venus’s mere straws of hints, 
now shown to be worthless for his purpose. Casting about 
for ways and means of dissolving the connection without 
loss of money, reproaching himself for having been betrayed 
into an avowal of his secret, and complimenting himself 
beyond measure on his purely accidental good luck, he be- 
guiled the distance between Clerkenwell and the mansion of 
the Golden Dustman. 

For Silas Wegg felt it to be quite out of the question that 
he could lay his head upon his pillow in peace, without first 
hovering over Mr. Boffin^ house in the superior character of 
its Evil Genius. Power (unless it be the power of intellect 
or virtue) has ever the greatest attraction for the lowest 
natures; and the mere defiance of the unconscious house- 
front, with his power to strip the roof off the inhabiting 
family like the roof of a house of cards, was a treat which 
had a charm for Silas Wegg. 

As he hovered on the opposite side of the street, exulting, 
the carriage drove up. 

“ There’ll shortly be an end of 2/ow,” said Wegg, threaten- 
ing it with the hat-box. “ Your varnish is fading.” 

Mrs. Boffin descended and went in. 





i 



THE FRIENDLY MOVERS STRONG POSITION 567 


“ Look out for a fall, my Lady Dustman,” said Wegg. 

Bella lightly descended and ran in after her. 

“How brisk we are!” said Wegg. “You won’t run so 
gaily to your old shabby home, my girl. You’ll have to go 
there, though.” 

A little while, and the Secretary came out. 

“ I was passed over for you,” said Wegg. “But you had 
better provide yourself with another situation, young man.” 

Mr. Boffin’s shadow passed upon the blinds of three large 
windows as he trotted down the room, and passed again as 
he went back. 

“ Yoop! ” cried Wegg. “ You’re there, are you? Where’s 
the bottle? You would give your bottle for my box, Dust- 
man! ” 

Having now composed his mind for slumber, he turned 
homeward. Such was the greed of the fellow, that his mind 
had shot beyond halves, two-thirds, three-fourths, and gone 
straight to spoliation of the whole. “ Though that wouldn’t 
quite do,” he considered, growing cooler as he got away. 
“ That’s what would happen to him if he didn’t buy us up. 
We should get nothing by that.” 

We so judge others by ourselves, that it had never come 
into his head before, that he might not buy us up, and might 
prove honest, and prefer to be poor. It caused him a slight 
tremor as it passed ; but a very slight one, for the idle thought 
was gone directly. 

“ He’s grown too fond of money for that,” said Wegg; 
“ he’s grown too fond of money.” The burden fell into a 
strain or tune as he stumped along the pavements. All the 
way home he stumped it out of the rattling streets, piano 
with his own foot, and forte with his wooden leg, “ He’s 
GROWN too FOND of MONEY for THAT, hc’s GROWN tOO FOND 
of MONEY.” 

Even next day Silas soothed himself with this melodious 
strain, when he was called out of bed at daybreak, to set 
open the yard-gate and admit the train of carts and horses 
that came to carry off the little Mound. And all day long, 
as he kept unwinking watch on the slow process which pro- 
mised to protract itself through many days and weeks, 
whenever (to save himself from being choked with dust) he 


568 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


patrolled a little cinderous beat he established for the purpose, 
without taking his eyes from the diggers, he still stumped 
to the tune: “ He’s grown too fond of money for that, he’s 
GROWN too FOND of MONEY.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY 

The train of carts and horses came and went all day from 
dawn to nightfall, making little or no daily impression on 
the heap of ashes, though, as the days passed on, the heap 
was seen to be slowly melting. My lords and gentlemen and 
honourable boards, when you in the course of your dust- 
shovelling and cinder-raking have piled up a mountain of 
pretentious failure, you must off with your honourable coats 
for the removal of it, and fall to the work with the power of 
all the queen’s horses ajid all the queen’s men, or it will come 
rushing down and bury us alive. 

Yes, verily, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, 
adapting your Catechism to the occasion, and by God’s help 
so you must. For when we have got things to the pass that 
with an enormous treasure at disposal to relieve the poor, the 
best of the poor detest our mercies, hide their heads from us, 
and shame us by starving to death in the midst of us, it is a 
pass impossible of prosperity, impossible of continuance. It 
may not be so Avritten in the Gospel according to Pod- 
snappery; you may not “ find these words ” for the ie^t of 
a sermon, in the Returns of the Board of Trade; but they 
have been the truth since the foundations of the universe 
were laid, and they will be the truth until the foundations 
of the universe are shaken by the Builder. This boastful 
handiwork of ours, which fails in its terrors for the pro- 
fessional pauper, the sturdy breaker of windows and the 
rampant tearer of clothes, strikes with a cruel and a wicked 
stab at the stricken sufferer, and is a horror to the deserving 
and unfortunate. We must mend it, lords and gentlemen 
and honourable boards, or in its own evil hour it will mar 
every one of us. 


570 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Old Betty Higden fared upon her pilgrimage as many 
ruggedly honest creatures, women and men, fare on their toil- 
ing way along the roads of life. Patiently to earn a spare 
bare living, and quietly to die, untouched by workhouse hands 
— this was her highest sublunary hope. 

Nothing had been heard of her at Mr. Boffin’s house since 
she trudged off. The weather had been hard and the roads 
had been bad, and her spirit was up. A less staunch spirit 
might have been subdued by such adverse influences; but the 
loan for her little outfit was in no part repaid, and it -had 
gone worse with her than she had foreseen, and she was put 
upon proving her case and maintaining her independence. 

Faithful soul! When she had spoken to the Secretary of 
that “ deadness that steals over me at times,” her fortitude 
had made too little of it. Oftener and ever oftener, it came 
stealing over her; darker and ever darker, like the shadow 
of advancing Death. That the shadow should be deep as it 
came on, like the shadow of an actual presence, was in accord- 
ance with the laws of the physical world, for all the Light 
that shone on Betty Higden lay beyond Death. 

The poor old creature had taken the upward course of the 
river Thames as her general track; it was the track in which 
her last home lay, and of which she had last had local love 
and knowledge. She had hovered for a little while in the 
near neighbourhood of her abandoned dwelling, and had sold, 
and knitted and sold, and gone on. In the pleasant towns 
of Chertsey, Walton, Kingston, and Staines, her figure came 
to be quite well known for some short weeks, and then again 
passed on. 

She would take her stand in market-places, where there 
were such things, on market-days; at other times, in the busi- 
est (that was seldom very busy) portion of the little quiet High 
Street; at still other times she would explore the outlying 
roads for great houses, and would ask leave at the Lodge to 
pass in with her basket, and would not often get it. But 
ladies in carriages would frequently make purchases from her 
trifling stock, and were usually pleased with her bright eyes 
and her hopeful speech. In these and her clean dress origi- 
nated a fable that she was well to do in the world : one might 
say, for her station, rich. As making a comfortable provision 


THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY 571 

for its subject which costs nobody anything, this class of fable 
has long been popular. 

In those pleasant little towns on Thames, you may hear 
the fall of the water over the weirs, or even, in still weather, 
the rustle of the rushes; and from the bridge you may see 
the young river, dimpled like a young child, playfully gliding 
away among the trees, unpolluted by the defilements that 
lie in wait for it on its course, and as yet out of hearing of 
the deep summons of the sea. It were too much to pretend 
that Betty Higden made out such thoughts; no; but she 
heard the tender river whispering to many like herself, 
“ Come to me, come to me! When the cruel shame and 
terror you have so long fled from, most beset you, come to 
me! I am the Relieving Officer appointed by eternal ordi- 
nance to do my work; I am not held in estimation according 
as I shirk it. My breast is softer than the pauper-nurse’s; 
death in my arms is peacefuller than among the pauper- 
wards. Come to me!” 

There was abundant place for gentler fancies, too, in her 
untutored mind. Those gentlefolks and their children inside 
those fine houses, could they think, as they looked out at 
her, what it was to be really hungry, really cold ? Did they 
feel any of the wonder about her, that she felt about them ? 
Bless the dear laughing children! If they could have seen 
sick Johnny in her arms, would they have cried for pity? 
If they could have seen dead Johnny on that little bed, 
would they have understood it ? Bless the dear children for 
his sake, anyhow! So with the humbler houses in the little 
street, the inner firelight shining on the panes as the outer 
twilight darkened. When the families gathered indoors 
there for the night, it was only a foolish fancy to feel as if 
it were a little hard in them to close the shutter and blacken 
the flame. So with the lighted shops, and speculations 
whether their masters and mistresses taking tea in a per- 
spective of back parlour — not so far within but that the 
flavour of tea and toast came out, mingled with the glow of 
light, into the street — ate or drank or wore what they sold, 
with the greater relish because they dealt in it. So with the 
churchyard on a branch of the solitary way to the night’s 
sleeping-place. “ Ah me! The dead and I seem to have it 


572 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


pretty much to ourselves in the dark and in this weather! 
But so much the better for all who are warmly housed at 
home.’* The poor soul envied no one in bitterness, and 
grudged no one anything. 

But the old abhorrence grew stronger on her as she grew 
weaker, and it found more sustaining food than she did in 
her wanderings. Now, she would light upon the shameful 
spectacle of some desolate creature — or some wretched 
ragged groups of either sex, or of both sexes, with children 
among them, huddled together like the smaller vermin, for a 
little warmth — lingering and lingering on a doorstep, while 
the appointed evader of the public trust did his dirty office of 
trying to weary them out and so get rid of them. Now, 
she would light upon some poor decent person, like herself, 
going afoot on a pilgrimage of many weary miles to see 
some worn-out relative or friend who had been charitably 
clutched off to a great blank barren Union House, as far 
from old home as the County Jail (the remoteness of which 
is always its worst punishment for small rural offenders), and 
in its dietary, and in its lodging, and in its tending of the 
sick, a much more penal establishment. Sometimes she would 
hear a newspaper read out, and would learn how the Registrar 
General cast up the units that had within the last week died 
of want and of exposure to the weather: for which that Re- 
cording Angel seemed to have a regular fixed place in his 
sum, as if they were its halfpence. All such things she would 
hear discussed, as we, my lords and gentlemen and honour- 
able boards, in our unapproachable magnificence never hear 
them, and from all such things she would fly with the wings 
of raging Despair. 

This is not to be received as a figure of speech. Old Betty 
Higden, however tired, however footsore, would start up 
and be driven away by her awakened horror of falling into 
the hands of Charity. It is a remarkable Christian improve- 
ment, to have made a pursuing Fury of the Good Samaritan; 
but it was so in this case, and it is a type of many, many, 
many. 

Two incidents united to intensify the old unreasoning 
abhorrence — granted in a previous place to be unreasoning, 
because the people always are unreasoning, and invari- 


THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY 573 

ably make a point of producing all their smoke without 
fire. 

One day she was sitting in a market-place on a bench 
outside an inn, with her little wares for sale, when the dead- 
ness that she strove against came over her so heavily that 
the scene departed from before her eyes; when it returned, 
she found herself on the ground, her head supported by some 
good-natured market-woman, and a little crowd about her. 

“ Are you better now, mother? ” asked one of the women. 

Do you think you can do nicely now’ ? ” 

“ Have I been ill then ? ” asked old Betty. 

“ You have had a faint like,’’ was the answer, “ or a fit. 
It ain’t that you’ve been a-struggling, mother, but you’ve been 
stiff and numbed.” 

“ Ah! ” said Betty, recovering her memory. It’s the 
numbness. Yes. It comes over me at times.” 

Was it gone? the women asked her. 

“It’s gone now,” said Betty. “ I shall be stronger than 
I was afore. Many thanks to ye, my dears, and when you 
come to be as old as I am, may others do as much for you! ” 

They assisted her to rise, but she could not stand yet, and 
they supported her when she sat down again upon the bench. 

“ My head’s a bit light, and my feet are a bit heavy,” said 
old Betty, leaning her face drowsily on the breast of the 
woman who had spoken before. “ They’ll both come nat’ral 
in a minute. There’s nothing more the matter.” 

“ Ask her,” said some farmers standing by, who had come 
out from their market-dinner, “ who belongs to her.” 

“Are there any folks belonging to you, mother?” said 
the woman. 

“ Yes, sure,” answered Betty. “ I heerd the gentleman say 
it, but I couldn’t answer quick enough. There’s plenty 
belonging to me. Don’t ye fear for me, my dear.” 

“ But are any of ’em near here? ” said the men’s voices: 
the women’s voices chiming in when it was said, and pro 
longing the strain. 

“ Quite near enough,” said Betty, rousing herself. “ Don’l 
ye be afeard for me, neighbours.” 

“ But you are not fit to travel. Where are you going? ’ 
was the next compassionate chorus she heard. 


574 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Tm a-going to London, when I’ve sold out all,” said 
Betty, rising with 'difficulty. “ I’ve right good friends in 
London. I want for nothing. I shall come to no harm. 
Thankye. Don’t ye be afeard for me.” 

A well-meaning bystander, yellow-legginged and purple 
faced, said hoarsely over his red comforter, as she rose to 
her feet, that she “ oughtn’t to be let to go.” 

‘‘ For the Lord’s love don’t meddle with me! ” cried old 
Betty, all her fears crowding on her. I am quite well now, 
and I must go this minute.” 

She caught up her basket as she spoke, and was making 
an unsteady rush away from them, when the same bystander 
checked her with his hand on her sleeve, and urged her to 
come with him and see the parish doctor. Strengthening 
herself by the utmost exercise of her resolution, the poor 
trembling creature shook him off, almost fiercely, and took 
to flight. Nor did she feel safe until she had set a mile or 
two of by-road between herself and the market-place, and 
had crept into a copse, like a hunted animal, to hide and 
recover breath. Not until then for the first time did she 
venture to recall how she had looked over her shoulder before 
turning out of the town, and had seen the sign of the 
White Lion hanging across the road, and the flutter- 
ing market booths, and the old gray church, and the 
little crowd gazing after her but not attempting to follow 
her. 

The second frightening incident was this. She had been 
again as bad, and had been for some days better, and was 
travelling along by a part of the road where it touched the 
river, and in wet seasons was so often overflowed by it that 
there were tall white posts set up to mark the way. A barge 
was being towed towards her, and she sat down on the bank 
to rest and watch it. As the tow-rope was slackened by a 
turn of the stream and dipped into the water, such a confusion 
stole into her mind that she thought she saw the forms of 
her dead children and dead grandchildren peopling the 
barge, and waving their hands to her in solemn measure; 
then as the rope tightened and came up, dropping diamonds, 
it seemed to vibrate into two parallel ropes and strike her, 
with a twang, though it was far off. When she looked again 







THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY 


575 


there was no barge, no river, no daylight, and a man 
whom she had never before seen held a candle close to her 
face. 

“ Now, Missis,” said he; “ where did you come from and 
where are you going to ? ” 

The poor soul confusedly asked the counter-question where 
she w^as? 

‘‘ I am the Lock,” said the man. 

“The Lock?” 

“ I am the Deputy Lock, on job, and this is the Lock- 
house. (Lock or Deputy Lock, it’s all one, while the t’other 
man’s in the hospital.) What’s your Parish ? ” 

“Parish!” She was up from the truckle bed directly, 
wildly feeling about her for her basket, and gazing at him 
in affright. 

“ You’ll be asked the question down town,” said the man. 
“ They won’t let you be more than a Casual there. They’ll 
pass you on to your settlement, Missis, with all speed. 
You’re not in a state to be let come upon strange parishes 
’ceptin as a Casual.” 

“ ’Twas the deadness again!” murmured Betty Higden, 
with her hand to her head. 

“ It was the deadness, there’s not a doubt about it,” re- 
turned the man. “ I should have thought the deadness was 
a mild word for it, if it had been named to me when we brought 
you in. Have you got any friends. Missis ? ” 

“ The best of friends. Master.” 

“ I should recommend your looking ’em up if you consider 
*em game to do anything for you,” said the Deputy Lock. 
“ Have you got any money? ” 

“ Just a morsel of money, sir.” 

“ Do you want to keep it? ” 

“Sure I do!” 

“ Well, you know,” said the Deputy Lock, shrugging his 
shoulders with his hands in his pockets, and shaking his 
head in a sulkily ominous manner, “ the parish authorities 
down town will have it out of you, if you go on, you may 
take your Alfred David.” 

“ Then I’ll not go on.” 

“ They’ll make you pay, as fur as your money will go,” 


576 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


pursued the Deputy, for your relief as a Casual and for 
your being passed to your Parish.” 

“ Thank ye kindly, Master, for your warning, thank ye for 
your shelter, and good night.” 

Stop a bit,” said the Deputy, striking in between her and 
the door. “ Why are you all of a shake, and what’s your 
hurry, Missis ? ” 

‘‘ Oh, Master, Master,” returned Betty Higden, “ I’ve 
fought against the Parish and fled from it, all my life, and I 
want to die free of it! ” 

‘‘ I don’t know,” said the Deputy, with deliberation, “ as I 
ought to let you go. I’m a honest man as gets my living by 
the sweat of my brow, and I may fall into trouble by letting 
you go. I’ve fell into trouble afore now, by George, and I 
know what it is, and it’s made me careful. You might be 
took with your deadness again, half a mile off — or half of 
half a quarter for the matter of that — and then it would be 
asked. Why did that there honest Deputy Lock let her go, 
instead of putting her safe with the Parish? That’s what 
a man of his character ought to have done, it would be 
argueyfied,” said the Deputy Lock, cunningly harping on 
the strong string of her terror; he ought to have handed 
her over safe to the Parish. That was to be expected of a 
man of his merits.” 

As he stood in the doorway, the poor old careworn, way- 
worn woman burst into tears, and clasped her hands, as if in 
a very agony she prayed to him. 

“ As I’ve told you, Master, I’ve the best of friends. This 
letter will show how true I spoke, and they will be thankful 
for me.” 

The Deputy Lock opened the letter with a grave face, 
which underwent no change as he eyed its contents. But it 
might have done, if he could have read them. 

“ What amount of small change. Missis,” he said with an 
abstracted air, after a little meditation, might you call a 
morsel of money ? ” 

Hurriedly emptying her pocket, old Betty laid down on the 
table, a shilling and two sixpenny pieces, and a few pence. 

“ If I was to let you go instead of handing you over safe 
to the Parish,” said the Deputy, counting the money with 


THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY 577 

his eyes, “ might it be your own free wish to leave that there 
behind you?’* 

“ Take it, Master, take it, and welcome and thank- 
ful!” 

“ I’m a man,” said the Deputy, giving her back the letter, 
and pocketing the coins, one by one, as earns his living by 
the sweat of his brow; ” here he drew his sleeve across his 
forehead, as if this particular portion of his humble gains 
were the result of sheer hard labour and virtuous industry; 

and I won’t stand in your way. Go where you like.” 

She was gone out of the Lock-house as soon as he gave her 
this permission, and her tottering stej)s were on the road 
again. But, afraid to go back and afraid to go forward; 
seeing what she fled from, in the sky-glare of the lights of 
the little town before her, and leaving a confused horror of 
it everywhere behind her, as if she had escaped it in every 
stone of every market-place; she struck off by side w^ays, 
among which she got bewdldered and lost. That night she 
took refuge from the Samaritan in his latest accredited form, 
under a farmer’s rick; and if — worth thinking of, perhaps, 
my fellow-Christians — the Samaritan had in the lonely night 
“ passed by on the other side,” she would have most devoutly 
thanked High Heaven for her escape from him. 

The morning found her afoot again, but fast declining as 
to the clearness of her thoughts, though not as to the steadi- 
ness of her purpose. Comprehending that her strength was 
quitting her, and that the struggle of her life was almost 
ended, she could neither reason out the means of getting 
back to her protectors, nor even form the idea. The over- 
mastering dread, and the proud stubborn resolution it en- 
gendered in her to die undegraded, were the two distinct 
impressions left in her failing mind. Supported only by 
a sense that she was bent on conquering in her life-long 
fight, she went on. 

The time was come, now, when the wants of this little 
life were passing away from her. She could not have swal- 
lowed food, though a table had been spread for her in the 
next field. The day was cold and wet, but she scarcely 
knew it. She crept on, poor soul, like a criminal afraid of 
being taken, and felt little beyond the terror of falling down 


578 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


while it was yet daylight, and being found alive. She had no 
fear that she would live through another night. 

Sewn in the breast of her gown, the money to pay for her 
burial was still intact. If she could wear through the day, 
and then lie down to die under cover of the darkness, she 
would die independent. If she were captured previously, the 
money would be taken from her as a pauper who had no 
right to it, and she would be carried to the accursed work- 
house. Gaining her end, the letter would be found in her 
breast, along with the money, and the gentlefolks would say 
when it was given back to them, She prized it, did old 
Betty Higden; she was true to it; and while she lived, she 
would never let it be disgraced by falling into the hands 
of those that she held in horror.” Most illogical, inconse- 
quential, and light-headed, this; but travellers in the valley 
of the shadow of death are apt to be light-headed; and 
worn-out old people of low estate have a trick of reasoning 
as indifferently as they live, and doubtless would appreciate 
our Poor Law more philosophically on an income of ten 
thousand a year. 

So, keeping to by-ways, and shunning human approach, 
this troublesome old woman hid herself, and fared on all 
through the dreary day. Yet so unlike was she to vagrant 
hiders in general, that sometimes, as the day advanced, there 
was a bright fire in her eyes, and a quicker beating at her 
feeble heart, as though she said exultingly, ‘‘ The Lord will 
see me through it! ” 

By what visionary hands she was led along upon that 
journey of escape from the Samaritan; by what voices, 
hushed in the grave, she seemed to be addressed; how she 
fancied the dead child in her arms again, and times innu- 
merable adjusted her shawl to keep it warm; what infinite 
variety of forms of tower and roof and steeple the trees took ; 
how many furious horsemen rode at her, crying, “ There she 
goes! Stop! Stop, Betty Higden!” and melted away as 
they came close; be these things left untold. Faring on 
and hiding, hiding and faring on, the poor harmless creature, 
as though she were a Murderess and the whole country were 
up after her, wore out the day and gained the night. 

“ Water-meadows, or such like,” she had sometimes inur- 


THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY 579 

mured, on the day’s pilgrimage, when she had raised her 
head and taken any note of the real objects about her. There 
now arose in the darkness a great building full of lighted 
windows. Smoke was issuing from a high chimney in the 
rear of it, and there was the sound of a water-wheel at the 
side. Between her and the building lay a piece of water, 
in which the lighted windows were reflected, and on its 
nearest margin was a plantation of trees. “ I humbly thank 
the Power and the Glory,” said Betty Higden, holding up her 
withered hands, “ that I have come to my journey’s end! ” 

She crept among the trees to the trunk of a tree whence 
she could see, beyond some intervening trees and branches, 
the lighted windows, both in their reality and their reflec- 
tion in the w'ater. She placed her orderly little basket at her 
side, and sank upon the ground, supporting herself against 
the tree. It brought to her mind the foot of the Cross, and 
she committed herself to Him who died upon it. Pier strength 
held out to enable her to arrange the letter in her breast, 
so as that it could be seen that she had a paper there. It 
had held out for this, and it departed when this was done. 

I am safe here,” was her last benumbed thought. When 
I am found dead at the foot of the Cross, it -will be by some 
of my own sort; some of the working people who work among 
the lights yonder. I cannot see the lighted windows now, 
but they are there. I am thankful for all! ” 

The darkness gone, and a face bending down. 

“ It cannot be the boofer lady? ” 

“ I don’t understand what you say. Let me wet your lips 
again with this brandy. I have been away to fetch it. Did 
you think that I was long gone ? ” 

It is as the face of a woman, shaded by a quantity of rich 
dark hair. It is the earnest face of a woman who is young and 
handsome. But all is over with me on earth, and this 
must be an Angel. 

“ Have I been long dead ? ” 

“ I don’t understand what you say. Let me wet your lips 
again. I hurried all I could, and brought no one back wdth 
me, lest you should die of the shock of strangers.” 


580 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Am I not dead ? ” 

“ I cannot understand what you say. Your voice is so 
low and broken that I cannot hear you. Do you hear me ? ” 
Yes.” 

“ Do you mean yes ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I was coming from my work just now, along the path 
outside (I was up with the night-hands last night), and I 
heard a groan, and found you lying here.” 

“ What work, deary? ” 

“ Did you ask what work? At the paper-mill.” 

“ Where is it? ” 

“ Your face is turned up to the sky, and you can’t see it. 
It is close by. You can see my face, here, between you and the 
sky?” 

“ Yes.” 

Dare I lift you? ” 

“ Not yet.” 

“ Not even lift your head to get it on my arm ? I will 
do it by very gentle degrees. You shall hardly feel it.” 

“ Not yet. Paper. Letter.” 

“ This paper in your breast? ” 

“Bless ye!” 

“Let me wet your lips again. Am I to open it? To 
read it?” 

“Bless ye!” 

She reads it with surprise, and looks down with a new 
expression and an added interest on the motionless face she 
kneels beside. 

“ I know these names. I have heard them often.” 

“ Will you send it, my dear? ” 

“ I cannot understand you. Let me wet your lips again, 
and your forehead. There. Oh, poor thing, poor thing!” 
These words through her fast dropping tears. “ What was 
it that you asked me? Wait till I bring my ear quite close.” 

“ Will you send it, my dear? ” 

“ Will I send it to the writers? Is that your wish? Yes, 
certainly.” 

“ You’ll not give it up to any one but them? ” 

“ No.” 


THE END OP A LONG JOURNEY 


581 


As you must grow old in time, and come to your dying 
hour, my dear, you’ll not give it up to any one but them ? ” 

“ No. Most solemnly.” 

Never to the Parish ? ” with a convulsed struggle. 

“ No. Most solemnly.” 

“Nor let the Parish touch me, nor yet so much as look at 
me ? ” with another struggle. 

“No. Faithfully.” 

A look of thankfulness and triumph lights the worn old 
face. The eyes, which have been darkly fixed upon the sky, 
turn with meaning in them towards the compassionate face 
from which the tears are dropping, and a smile is on the 
aged lips as they ask: 

“ What is your name, my dear? ” 

“ My name is Lizzie Hexam.” 

“ I must be sore disfigured. Are you afraid to kiss me? ” 

The answer is the ready pressure of her lips upon the cold 
but smiling mouth. 

“Bless ye! N'oti; lift me, my love.” 

Lizzie Hexam very softly raised the weather-stained gray 
head, and lifted her as high as Heaven. 


CHAPTER IX 


SOMEBODY BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION 

“ ‘ We give thee hearty thanks for that it hath 

PLEASED THEE TO DELIVER THIS OUR SISTER OUT OF THE 
MISERIES OF THIS SINFUL WORLD.’ ” So read the Reverend 
Frank Milvey in a not untroubled voice, for his heart misgave 
him that all was not quite right between us and our sister 
— or say our sister in Law — Poor Law — and that we 
sometimes read these words in an awful manner, over our 
Sister and our Brother too. 

And Sloppy — on whom the brave deceased had never 
turned her back until she ran away from him, knowing that 
otherwise he would not be separated from her — Sloppy could 
not in his conscience as yet find the hearty thanks required 
of it. Selfish in Sloppy, and yet excusable, it may be humbly 
hoped, because our sister had been more than his mother. 

The words were read above the ashes of Betty Higden, in 
a corner of a churchyard near the river; in a churchyard 
so obscure that there was nothing in it but grass-mounds, 
not so much as one single tombstone. It might not be to 
do an unreasonably great deal for the diggers and hewers, in 
a registering age, if we ticketed their graves at the common 
charge; so that a new generation might know which was 
which; so that the soldier, sailor, emigrant, coming home, 
should be able to identify the resting-place of father, mother, 
})laymate, or betrothed. For we turn up our eyes and say 
that we are all alike in death, and we might turn them down 
and work the saying out in this world, so far. It would 
be sentimental, perhaps. But how say ye, my lords and 
gentlemen and honourable boards, shall we not find good 
standing-room left for a little sentiment, if we look into our 
crowds ? 


SOMEBODY THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION 583 

Near unto the Reverend Frank Milvey as he read stood 
his little wife, John Rokesmith the Secretary, and Bella 
Wilfer. These, over and above Sloppy, were the mourners 
at the lowly grave. Not a penny had been added to the 
money sewn in her dress: what her honest spirit had so long 
projected was fulfilled. 

“ Fve took it in my head,” said Sloppy, laying it, incon- 
solable, against the church door, when all was done: “ Fve 
took it in my wretched head that I might have sometimes 
turned a little harder for her, and it cuts me deep to think 
so now.” 

The Reverend Frank Milvey, comforting Sloppy, ex- 
pounded to him how the best of us were more or less remiss 
in our turnings at our respective Mangles — some of us very 
much so — and how we were all a halting, failing, feeble, 
and inconstant crew. 

** She warn’t, sir,” said Sloppy, taking this ghostly counsel 
rather ill, in behalf of his late benefactress. “ Let us speak 
for ourselves, sir. She went through wdth wdiatever duty she 
had to do. She went through wdth me, she went through 
with the Minders, she went through with herself, she went 
through with everything. O Mrs. Higden, Mrs. Higden, 
you was a woman and a mother and a mangier in a million 
million!” 

With those heartfelt words. Sloppy removed his dejected 
head from the church door, and took it back to the grave in 
the corner and laid it down there, and wept alone. “ Not a 
very poor grave,” said the Reverend Frank Milvey, brushing 
his hand across his eyes, when it has that homely figure on 
it. Richer, I think, than it could be made by most of the 
sculpture in Westminster Abbey!” 

They left him undisturbed, and passed out at the wdcket- 
gate. The water-wheel of the paper-mill was audible there, 
and seemed to have a softening influence on the bright wintry 
scene. They had arrived but a little while before, and Lizzie 
Hexam now told them the little she could add to the letter 
in which she had enclosed Mr. Rokesmith’s letter and had 
asked for their instructions. This was merely how she had 
heard the groan, and what had afterwards passed, and how 
she had obtained leave for the remains to be placed in that 


584 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


sweet, fresh, empty store-room of the mill from which they 
had just accompanied them to the churchyard, and how the 
last request had been religiously observed. 

I could not have done it all, or nearly all, of myself,” 
said Lizzie. “ I should not have wanted the will; but I 
should not have had the power, without our managing part- 
ner.” 

Surely not the Jew who received us ? ” said Mrs. Milvey. 

(“ My dear,” observed her husband, in parenthesis, why 
not?”) 

The gentleman certainly is a Jew,” said Lizzie, “ and the 
lady, his wife, is a Jewess, and I was first brought to their 
notice by a Jew. But I think there cannot be kinder people 
in the world.” 

“ But suppose they try to convert you!” suggested Mrs. 
Milvey, bristling in her good little way, as a clergyman’s 
wife. 

“To do what, ma’am?” asked Lizzie, with a modest 
smile. 

“To make you change your religion,” said Mrs. Milvey. 

Lizzie shook her head, still smiling. “ They have never 
asked me what my religion is. They asked me what my 
story was, and I told them. They asked me to be industrious 
and faithful, and I promised to be so. They most willingly 
and cheerfully do their duty to all of us who are employed 
here, and we try to do ours to them. Indeed they do much 
more than their duty to us, for they are wonderfully mindful 
of us in many ways.” 

“ It is easy to see you’re a favourite, my dear,” said little 
Mrs. Milvey, not quite pleased. 

“ It would be very ungrateful in me to say I am not,” 
returned Lizzie, “for I have been already raised to a place 
of confidence here. But that makes no difference in their 
following their own religion and leaving all of us to ours. 
They never talk of theirs to us, and they never talk of ours 
to us. If I was the last in the mill it would be just the same. 
They never ' asked me what religion that poor thing had 
followed.” 

“ My dear,” said Mrs. IVTdvey, aside to the Reverend Frank, 
“ I wish you would talk to her.” 


SOMEBODY THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION 585 

“ My dear,” said the Reverend Frank, aside to his good 
little wife, “ I think I will leave it to somebody else. The 
circumstances are hardly favourable. There are plenty of 
talkers going about, my love, and she will soon find one.” 

While this discourse was interchanging, both Bella and the 
Secretary observed Lizzie Ilexam with great attention. 
Brought face to face for the first time with the daughter 
of his supposed murderer, it was natural that John Harmon 
should have his own secret reasons for a careful scrutiny of 
her countenance and manner. Bella knew that Lizzie’s father 
had been falsely accused of the crime which had had so great 
an influence on her own life and fortunes; and her interest, 
though it had no secret springs, like that of the Secretary, 
was equally natural. Both had exi)ected to see something 
very different from the real Lizzie Hexam, and thus it fell 
out that she became the unconscious means of bringing them 
together. 

For when they had walked on with her to the little house 
in the clean village by the paper-mill, where Lizzie had a 
lodging with an elderly couple employed in the establishment, 
and when Mrs. Milvey and Bella had been up to see her 
room and had come down, the mill bell rang. This called 
Lizzie away for the time, and left the Secretary and Bella 
standing rather awkwardly in the small street; Mrs. Milvey 
being engaged in pursuing the village children, and her 
investigations whether they were in danger of becoming 
children of Israel; and the Reverend Frank being engaged — 
to say the truth — in evading that branch of his spiritual 
functions, and getting out of sight surreptitiously. 

Bella at length said: 

“ Hadn’t we better talk about the commission we have 
undertaken, Mr. Rokesmith ? ” 

“ By all means,” said the Secretary. 

“ I suppose,” faltered Bella, ‘‘ that we are both commis- 
sioned, or we shouldn’t both be here? ” 

I suppose so,” was the Secretary’s answer. 

” When I proposed to come with Mr. and Mrs. Milvey,” 
said Bella, ” Mrs. Boffin urged me to do so, in order that I 
might give her my small re])ort — it’s not worth anything, Mr. 
Rokesmith, except for its being a woman’s — which indeed 


586 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


with you may be a fresh reason for its being worth nothing — 
of Lizzie Hexam.” 

“ Mr. Boffin,” said the Secretary, “ directed me to come for 
the same purpose.” 

As they spoke they were leaving the little street and emerg- 
ing on the wooded landscape by the river. 

“ You think well of her, Mr. Rokesmith? ” pursued Bella, 
conscious of making all the advances. 

“ I think highly of her.” 

“ I am so glad of that! Something quite refined in her 
beauty, is there not?” 

“ Her appearance is very striking.” 

“ There is a shade of sadness upon her that is quite touch- 
ing. At least I — I am not setting up my own poor opinion, 
you know, Mr. Rokesmith,” said Bella, excusing and explain- 
ing herself in a pretty shy way; “ I am consulting you.” 

“ I noticed that sadness. I hope it may not,” said the 
Secretary in a lower voice, “ be the result of the false accu- 
sation which has been retracted.” 

When they had passed on a little further without speaking, 
Bella, after stealing a glance or two at the Secretary, sud- 
denly said: 

“ Oh, Mr. Rokesmith, don’t be hard with me, don’t be 
stern with me; be magnanimous! I want to talk with you 
on equal terms.” 

The Secretary as suddenly brightened, and returned: 
“ Upon my honour I had no thought but for you. I forced my- 
self to be constrained, lest you might misinterpret my being 
more natural. There. It’s gone.” 

“ Thank you,” said Bella, holding out her little hand. 
“ Forgive me.” 

“ No! ” cried the Secretary, eagerly. “ Forgive Tne! ” For 
there were tears in her eyes, and they were prettier in his 
sight (though they smote him on the heart rather reproach- 
fully too) than any other glitter in the world. 

When they had walked a little further: 

“ You were going to speak to me,” said the Secretary, with 
the shadow so long on him quite thrown off and cast away, 
“ about Lizzie Hexam. So was I going to speak to you, if I 
could have begun.” 


SOMEBODY THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION 587 

Now that you can begin, sir,’’ returned Bella, with a look 
as if she italicised the word by putting one of her dimples 
under it, “ what were you going to say ? ” 

“You remember, of course, that in her short letter to Mrs. 
Boffin — short, but containing everything to the purpose — 
she stipulated that either her name, or else her place of resi- 
dence, must be kept strictly a secret among us.” 

Bella nodded Yes. 

“ It is my duty to find out why she made that stipulation 
I have it in charge from Mr. Boffin to discover, and I am 
very desirous for myself to discover, whether that retracted 
accusation still leaves any stain upon her. I mean whether 
it places her at any disadvantage towards any one, even to 
wards herself.” 

“Yes,” said Bella, nodding thoughtfully;’ “ I understand. 
That seems wise and considerate.” 

“You may not have noticed. Miss Wilfer, that she has 
the same kind of interest in you that you have in her. Just 
as you are attracted by her beaut — by her appearance and 
manner, she is attracted by yours.” 

“ I certainly have not noticed it,” returned Bella, again 
italicising with the dimple, “ and I should have given her 
credit for ” 

The Secretary with a smile held up his hand, so plain Iv 
interposing “ not for better taste,” that Bella’s colour deep- 
ened over the little piece of coquetry she was checked in. 

“ And so,” resumed the Secretary, “ if you would speak 
with her alone before we go away from here, I feel quite sure 
that a natural and easy confidence would arise between you. 
Of course you would not be asked to betray it; and of course 
you would not, if you were. But if you do not object to put 
this question to her — to ascertain for us her own feeling in 
this one matter — you can do so at a far greater advantage 
than I or any else could. Mr. Boffin is anxious on the sub- 
ject. And I am,” added the Secretary after a moment, “ for 
a special reason, very anxious.” 

“ I shall be happy, Mr. Rokesmith,” returned Bella, “ to 
be of the least use; for I feel, after the serious scene of to-day, 
that I am useless enough in this world.” 

“ Don’t say that,” urged the Secretary. 


588 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Oh, but I mean that/’ said Bella, raising her eyebrows. 

“ No one is useless in this world,” retorted the Secretary, 
“ who lightens the burden of it for any one else.” 

” But I assure you I dm't, Mr. Rokesmith,” said Bella, 
half crying. 

“ Not for your father? ” 

“ Dear, loving, self-forgetting, easily-satisfied Pa! Oh, yes! 
He thinks so.” 

“ It is enough if he only thinks so,” said the Secretary. 
“ Excuse the interruption: I don’t like to hear you depreciate 
yourself.” 

“ But you once depreciated me, sir,” thought Bella, pouting, 
“ and I hope you may be satisfied with the consequences you 
brought upon your head! ” However, she said nothing to 
that purpose; she even said something to a different pur- 
pose. 

“ Mr. Rokesmith, it seems so long since we spoke together 
naturally, that I am embarrassed in approaching another 
subject. Mr. Boffin. You know I am very grateful to him; 
don’t you? You know I feel a true respect for him, and am 
bound to him by the strong ties of his own generosity; now 
don’t you?” 

“ Unquestionably. And also that you are his favourite 
companion.” 

“ That makes it,” said Bella, “ so very difficult to speak of 
him. But Does he treat you well ? ” 

“ You see how he treats me,” the Secretary answered, with 
a patient and yet proud air. 

“ Yes, and I see it with pain,” said Bella, very energetically. 

The Secretary gave her such a radiant look, that if he had 
thanked her a hundred times, he could not have said as much 
as the look said. 

I see it with pain,” repeated Bella, ” and it often makes 
me miserable. Miserable, because I cannot bear to be sup- 
posed to approve of it, or have any indirect share in it. Miser- 
able, because I cannot bear to be forced to admit to myself 
that Fortune is spoiling Mr. Boffin.” 

Miss Wilfer,” said the Secretary, with a beaming face, 
“ if you could know with what delight I make the discovery 
that Fortune is not spoiling you, you would know that it 


SOMEBODY THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION 589 

more than compensates me for any slight at any other 
hands.” 

“ Oh, don’t speak of me” said Bella, giving herself an 
impatient little slap with her glove. “ You don’t know me 
as well as ” 

“ As you know yourself? ” suggested the Secretary, finding 
that she stopped. “ Do you know yourself ? ” 

I know quite enough of myself,” said Bella, with a 
charming air of being inclined to give herself up as a bad 
job, “ and I don’t improve upon acquaintance. But Mr. 
Boffin.’^ 

‘‘ That Mr. Boffin’s manner to me, or consideration for 
me, is not what it used to be,” observed the Secretary, 
“ must be admitted. It is too plain to be denied.” 

“ Are you disposed to deny it, Mr. Rokesmith ? ” asked 
Bella, with a look of wonder. 

“ Ought I not to be glad to do so, if I could : though it 
were only for my own sake ? ” 

“ Truly,” returned Bella, it must try you very much 
and — you must please promise me that you won’t take ill 
what I am going to add, Mr. Rokesmith ? ” 

“ I promise it with all my heart.” 

— And it must sometimes, I should think,” said Bella, 
hesitating, a little lower you in your own estimation ? ” 

Assenting with a movement of his head, though not at all 
looking as if it did, the Secretary replied : 

“ 1 have very strong reasons, Miss Wilfer, for bearing with 
the drawbacks of my position in the house we both inhabit. 
Believe that they are not all mercenary, although I have, 
through a series of strange fatalities, faded out of my place 
in life. If what you see with such a gracious and good 
sympathy is calculated to rouse my pride, there are other 
considerations (and those you do not see) urging me to quiet 
endurance. The latter are by far the stronger.” 

I think I have noticed, Mr. Rokesmith,” said Bella, look- 
ing at him with curiosity, as not quite making him out, “ that 
you repress yourself, and force yourself to act a passive part.” 

You are right. I repress myself and force myself to act 
a part. It is not in tameness of spirit that I submit. I have 
a settled purpose.” 


590 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ And a good one, I hope,” said Bella. 

“ And a good one, I hope,” he answered, looking steadily 
at her. 

“ Sometimes I have fancied, sir,” said Bella, turning away 
her eyes, “ that your great regard for Mrs. Boffin is a very 
powerful motive with you.” 

“You are right again; it is. I would do anything for 
her, bear anything for her. There are no words to express 
how I esteem that good, good woman.” 

“ As I do too! May I ask you one thing more, Mr. Roke- 
smith ? ” 

“ Anything more.” 

“ Of course you see that she really suffers, when Mr. Boffin 
shows how he is changing ? ” 

“I see it every day, as you see it, and am grieved to give 
her pain.” 

“To give her pain ? ” said Bella, repeating the phrase 
quickly, with her eyebrows raised. 

“ I am generally the unfortunate cause of it.” 

“ Perhaps she says to you, as she often says to me, that 
he is the best of men in spite of all.” 

“ I often overhear her, in her honest and beautiful devotion 
to him, saying so to you,” returned the Secretary with the 
same steady look, “ but I cannot assert that she ever says 
so to me.” 

Bella met the steady look for a moment with a wistful, 
musing little look of her own, and then, nodding her pretty 
head several times, like a dimpled philosopher (of the very 
best school) who was moralising on Life, heaved a little sigh, 
and gave up things in general for a bad job, as she had 
previously been inclined to give up herself. 

But, for all that, they had a very pleasant walk. The 
trees were bare of leaves, and the river was bare of water- 
lilies; but the sky was not bare of its beautiful blue, and 
the water reflected it, and a delicious wind ran with the 
stream, touching the surface crisply. Perhaps the old mirror 
was never yet made by human hands, which, if all the images 
it had in its time reflected could pass across its surface again, 
would fail to reveal some scene of horror or distress. But 
the great serene mirror of the river seemed as if it might 


SOMEBODY THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION 591 

have reproduced all it had ever reflected between those placid 
banks, and brought nothing to the light save what was 
peaceful, pastoral, and blooming. 

So, they walked, speaking of the newly fllled-up grave, 
and of Johnny, and of many things. So, on their return, 
they met brisk Mrs. Mi Ivey coming to seek them, with the 
agreeable intelligence that there was no fear for the village 
children, there being a Christian school in the village, and 
no worse Judaical interference with it than to plant its 
garden. So, they got back to the village as Lizzie Hexam 
was coming from the paper-mill, and Bella detached herself 
to speak with her in her own home. 

“ I am afraid it is a poor room for you,” said Lizzie, with 
a smile of welcome, as she offered the post of honour by 
the fireside. 

“ Not so poor as you think, my dear,” returned Bella, if 
you knew all.” Indeed, though attained by some wonderful 
winding narrow stairs, which seemed to have been erected 
in a pure white chimney, and though very low in^he ceiling, 
and very rugged in the floor, and rather blinking as to the 
proportions of its lattice window, it was a pleasanter room 
than that despised chamber once at home, in which Bella 
had first bemoaned the miseries of taking lodgers. 

The day was closing as the two girls looked at one another 
by the fireside. The dusky room was lighted by the fire. The 
grate might have been the old brazier, and the glow might 
have been the old hollow down by the flare. 

“ It’s quite new to me,” said Lizzie, to be visited by a 
lady so nearly of my own age, and so pretty as you. It’s 
a pleasure to me to look at you.” 

“ I have nothing left to begin with,” returned Bella, 
blushing, “ because I was going to say that it was a pleasure 
to me to look at you, Lizzie. But we can begin without a 
beginning, can’t we ? ” 

Lizzie took the pretty little hand that was held out in as 
pretty a little frankness. 

“ Now, dear,” said Bella, drawing her chair a little nearer, 
and taking Lizzie’s arm as if they were going out for a walk, 

“ I am commissioned with something to say, and I dare say 
I .shall say it wrong, but I won’t if I can help it. It is in 


592 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


reference to your letter to Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, and this is 
what it is. Let me see. Oh, yes! This is what it is.” 

With this exordium, Bella set forth that request of Lizzie’s 
touching secrecy, and delicately spoke of that false accusation 
and its retractation, and asked might she beg to be informed 
whether it had any bearing, near or remote, on such request. 
“ I feel, my dear,” said Bella, quite amazing herself by the 
business-like manner in which she was getting on, “ that the 
subject must be a painful one to you, but I am mixed up 
in it also; for — I don’t know whether you may know it or 
suspect it — I am the willed-away girl who was to have been 
married to the unfortunate gentleman, if he had been pleased 
to approve of me. So I was dragged into the subject with- 
out my consent, and you were dragged into it without your 
consent, and there is very little to choose between us.” 

“ I had no doubt,” said Lizzie, “ that you were the Miss 
Wilfer I have often heard named. Can you tell me who my 
unknown friend is ? ” 

“ Unknown friend, my dear?” said Bella. 

“ Who caused the charge against poor father to be contra- 
dicted, and sent me the written paper? ” 

Bella had never heard of him. Had no notion who he was. 

“ I should have been glad to thank him,” returned Lizzie. 
“ He has done a great deal for me. I must hope that he will 
let me thank him some day. You asked me has it anything 
to do ” 

“ It or the accusation itself,” Bella put in. 

“ Yes. Has either anything to do with my wishing to live 
quite secret and retired here? No.” 

As Lizzie Hexam shook her head in giving this reply, and 
as her glance sought the fire, there was a quiet resolution in 
her folded hands, not lost on Bella’s bright eyes. 

“ Have you lived much alone ? ” asked Bella. 

“ Yes. It’s nothing new to me. I used to be always alone 
many hours together, in the day aiid in the night, when poor 
father was alive.” 

“You Have a brother, I have been told? ” 

“ I have a brother; but he is not friendly with me. He 
is a very good boy though, and has raised himself by his 
industry. I don’t complain of him.” 


SOMEBODY THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION 593 


As she said it, with her eyes upon the fire-glow, there was 
an instantaneous escape of distress into her face. Bella seized 
the moment to touch her hand. 

“ Lizzie, I wish you would tell me whether you have any 
friend of your own sex and age.^’ 

“ I have lived that lonely kind of life, that I have never had 
one,” was the answer. 

“ Nor I either,” said Bella. Not that my life has been 
lonely, for I could have sometimes wished it lonelier, instead 
of having Ma going on like the Tragic Muse with a face-ache 
in majestic corners, and Lavvy being spiteful — though, of 
course, I am very fond of them both. I wish you could 
make a friend of me, Lizzie. Do you think you could? I 
have no more of what they call character, my dear, than a 
canary-bird; but I know I am trustworthy.” 

The wayward, playful, affectionate nature, giddy for want 
of the weight of some sustaining purpose, and capricious 
because it was always fluttering among little things, was yet 
a captivating one. To Lizzie it was so new, so pretty, at 
once so womanly and so childish, that it won her completely. 
And when Bella said again, “Do you think you could, 
Lizzie? ” with her eyebrows raised, her head inquiringly on 
one side, and an odd doubt about it in her own bosom, 
Lizzie showed beyond all question that she thought she could. 

“ Tell me, my dear,” said Bella, “ what is the matter, and 
why you live like this.” 

Lizzie presently began, by way of prelude, “You must 
have many lovers — ” when Bella checked her with a little 
scream of astonishment. 

“ My dear, I havenH one 1 

“ Not one ? ” 

“Well! Perhaps one,” said Bella. “I am sure I don’t 
know. I had one, but what he may think about it at the 
present time I can’t say. Perhaps I have half a one (of 
course I don’t count that Idiot, George Sampson). However, 
never mind me. I want to hear about you.” 

“ There is a certain man,” said Lizzie, “ a passionate and 
angry man, who says he loves me, and who I must believe 
does love me. He is the friend of my brother. I shrank 
from him within myself when my brother first brought him 


594 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


to me; but the last time I saw him, he terrified me more 
than I can say.” There she stopped. 

“ Did you come here to escape from him, Lizzie ? ” 

I came here immediately after he so alarmed me.” 

“ Are you afraid of him here? ” 

“ I am not timid generally, but I am always afraid of him. 
I am afraid to see a newspaper, or to hear a word spoken of 
what is done in London, lest he should have done some 
violence.” 

“ Then you are not afraid of him for yourself, dear? ” said 
Bella, after pondering on the words. 

“ I should be even that, if I met him about here. I look 
round for him always as I pass to and fro at night.” 

“Are you afraid of anything he may do to himself in 
London, my dear ? ” 

“No. He might be fierce enough even to do some violence 
to himself, but I don’t think of that.” 

“ Then it would almost seem, dear,” said Bella, quaintly, 
“ as if there must be somebody else? ” 

Lizzie put her hands before her face for a moment, before 
replying: “ The words are always in my ears, and the blow 
he struck upon a stone, wall as he said them, is always before 
my eyes. I have tried hard to think it not worth remembering, 
but I cannot make so little of it. His hand was trickling 
dov/n with blood as he said to me, ‘ Then I hope that I may 
never kill him! ’ ” 

Rather startled, Bella made and clasped a girdle of her 
arms round Lizzie’s waist, and then asked quietly, in a soft 
voice, as they both looked at the fire: 

“ Kill him! Is this man so jealous, then ? ” 

“ Of a gentleman,” said Lizzie. “ — I hardly know how to 
tell you — of a gentleman far above me and my way of life, 
who broke father’s death to me, and has shown an interest 
in me since.” 

“Does he love you?” 

Lizzie shook her head. 

“ Does he admire you? ” 

Lizzie ceased to shake her head, and pressed her hand 
upon her living girdle. 

■ Is it through his influence that you came here ? ” 


SOMEBODY THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION 595 

“Oh, nol And of all the world I wouldn’t have him 
know that I am here, or get the least clue where to find me.” 

“Lizzie, dear! Why?” asked Bella, in amazement at 
this burst. But then quickly added, reading Lizzie’s face; 
“No. Don’t say why. That was a foolish question of mine. 
I see. I see.” 

There was silence between them. Lizzie, with a drooping 
head, glanced down at the glow in the fire where her first 
fancies had been nursed, and her first escape made from the 
grim life out of which she had plucked her brother, fore- 
seeing her reward. 

“ You know all now,” she said, raising her eyes to Bella’s. 
“ There is nothing left out. This is my reason for living 
secret here, with the aid of a good old man who is my true 
friend. For a short part of my life at home with father, 
I knew of things — don’t ask me what — that I set my face 
against, and tried to better. I don’t think I could have done 
more then, without letting my hold on father go; but they 
sometimes lie heavy on my mind. By doing all for the best, 
I hope I may wear them out.” 

“And wear out too,” said Bella soothingly, “this weak- 
ness, Lizzie, in favour of one who is not worthy of it.” 

“ No. I don’t want to wear that out,” was the flushed 
reply, “ nor do I want to believe, nor do I believe, that he 
is not worthy of it. What should I gain by that, and how 
much should I lose! ” 

Bella’s expressive little eyebrows remonstrated with the 
fire for some short time before she rejoined: 

“ Don’t think that I press you, Lizzie; but wouldn’t you 
gain in peace, and hope, and even in freedom ? Wouldn’t it 
be better not to live a secret life in hiding, and not to be shut 
out from your natural and wholesome prospects? Forgive 
my asking you, would that be no gain ? ” 

“ Does a woman’s heart that — that has that weakness in 
it which you have spoken of,” returned Lizzie, “ seek to gain 
anything ? ” 

The question was so directly at variance with Bella’s views 
in life, as set forth to her father, that she said internally, 
“There, you little mercenary wretch! Do you hear that? 
Ain’t you ashamed of yourself? ” and unclasped the girdle of 


596 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


her arms, expressly to give herself a penitential poke in the 
side. 

“ But you said, Lizzie,” observed Bella, returning to 
her subject when she had administered this chastisement, 
“ that you would lose, besides. Would you mind telling me 
what you would lose, Lizzie ? ” 

“ I should lose some of the best recollections, best en- 
couragements, and best objects, that I carry through my 
daily life. I should lose my belief that if I had been his 
equal, and he had loved me, I should have tried with all 
my might to make him better and happier, as he would have 
made me. I should lose almost all the value that I put upon 
the little learning I have, which is all owing to him, and 
which I conquered the difficulties of, that he might not 
think it thrown away upon me. I should lose a kind of pic- 
ture of him — or of what he might have been, if I had been a 
lady, and he had loved me — which is always with me, and 
which I somehow feel that I could not do a mean or a wrong 
thing before. I should leave off prizing the remembrance that 
he has done me nothing but good since I have known him, 
and that he has made a change within me, like — like the 
change in the grain of these hands, which were coarse, and 
cracked, and hard, and brown when I rowed on the river with 
father, and are softened and made supple by this new work 
as you see them now.” 

They trembled, but with no weakness, as she showed 
them. 

“ Understand me, my dear; ” thus she went on. “ I have 
never dreamed of the possibility of his being anything to me 
on this earth but the kind of picture that I know I could 
not make you understand, if the understanding was not in 
your own breast already. I have no more dreamed of the 
possibility of my being his wife, than he ever has — and 
words could not be stronger than that. And yet I love 
him. I love him so much and so dearly, that when I some- 
times think my life may be but a weary one, I am proud of 
it and glad of it. I am proud and glad to suffer something 
for him, even though it is of no service to him, and he will 
never know of it or care for it.” 

Bella sat enchained by the deep, unselfish passion of this 


SOMEBODY THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION 59> 


girl or woman of her own age, courageously revealing itself 
in the confidence of her sympathetic perception of its truth. 
And yet she had never experienced anything like it, or 
thought of the existence of anything like it. 

“ It was late upon a wretched night,’ ^ said Lizzie, “ when 
his eyes first looked at me in my old river- side home, very 
different from this. His eyes may never look at me again. I 
would rather that they never did; I hope that they never 
may. But I would not have the light of them taken out of 
my life for anything my life can give me. I have told you 
everything now, my dear. If it comes a little strange to me 
to have parted with it, I am not sorry. I had no thought 
of ever parting with a single word of it, a moment before 
you came in; but you came in, and my mind changed.” 

Bella kissed her on the cheek, and thanked her warmly 
for her confidence. I only wish,” said Bella, ‘‘ I was more 
deserving of it.” 

“ More deserving of it? ” repeated Lizzie, with an incredu- 
lous smile. 

“ I don’t mean in respect of keeping it,” said Bella, be- 
cause any one should tear me to bits before getting at a 
syllable of it — though there’s no merit in that, for I am 
naturally as obstinate as a Pig. What I mean is, Lizzie, 
that I am a mere impertinent piece of conceit, and you 
shame me.” 

Lizzie put up the pretty brown hair that came tumbling 
down, owing to the energy with which Bella shook her head : 
and she remonstrated while thus engaged, “ My dear! ” 

“ Oh, it’s all very well to call me your dear,” said Bella, 
with a pettish whimper, “ and I am glad to be called so, 
though I have slight enough claim to be. But I am such 
a nasty little thing! ” 

My dear! ” urged Lizzie again. 

“ Such a shallow, cold, worldly. Limited little brute! ” 
said Bella, bringing out her last adjective with culminating 
force. 

“ Do you think,” inquired Lizzie, with her quiet smile, the 
hair being now secured, “ that I don’t know better? ” 

“Do you know better, though?” said Bella. “Do you 
really believe you know better? Oh, I should be so glad if 


698 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


you did know better, but I am so very much afraid that 
I must know best! 

Lizzie asked her, laughing outright, whether she ever saw 
her own face or heard her own voice ? 

I suppose so,” returned Bella; “ I look in the glass often 
enough, and I chatter like a Magpie.” 

‘‘ I have seen your face, and heard your voice, at any rate,” 
said Lizzie, ‘‘ and they have tempted me to say to you — with 
a certainty of not going wrong — what I thought I should 
never say to any one. Does that look ill ? ” 

No, I hope it doesn’t,” pouted Bella, stopping herself in 
something between a humoured laugh and a humoured 
sob. 

“ I used once to see pictures in the fire,” said Lizzie, play- 
fully, “ to please my brother. Shall I tell you what I see 
down there where the fire is glowing? ” 

They had risen, and were standing on the hearth, the time 
being come for separating; each had drawn an arm around 
the other to take leave. 

“ Shall I tell you,” asked Lizzie, what I see down there ? ” 
Limited little b ? ” suggested Bella, with her eyebrows 
raised. 

“ A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart 
that, once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, 
and never changes, and is never daunted.” 

“Girl’s heart?” asked Bella, with accompanying eye- 
brows. 

Lizzie nodded. “ And the figure to which it belongs ” 

“ Is yours,” suggested Bella. 

“ No. Most clearly and distinctly yours.” 

So the interview terminated with pleasant words on both 
sides, and with many reminders on the part of Bella that 
they were friends, and pledges that she would soon come 
down into that part of the country again. Therewith Lizzie 
returned to her occupation, and Bella ran over to the little 
inn to rejoin her company. 

“ You look rather serious. Miss Wilfer,” was the Secre- 
tary’s first remark. 

“ I feel rather serious,” returned Miss Wilfer. 

She had nothing else to tell him but that Lizzie Hex am’ s 


SOMEBODY THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION 599 

secret had no reference whatever to the cruel charge, or its 
withdrawal. Oh yes though! said Bella: she might as well 
mention one other thing; Lizzie was very desirous to thank 
her unknown friend who had sent her the written retractation. 
Was she indeed? observed the Secretary. Ah! Bella asked 
him, had he any notion who that unknown friend might be ? 
He had no notion whatever. 

They were on the borders of Oxfordshire, so far had poor 
old Betty Higden strayed. They were to return by the train 
presently, and, the station being near at hand, the Rev. 
Frank and Mrs. Frank, and Sloppy and Bella and the 
Secretary, set out to walk to it. Few rustic paths are wide 
enough for five, and Bella and the Secretary dropped be- 
hind. 

“ Can you believe, Mr. Rokesmith,'’ said Bella, “ that I feel 
as if whole years had passed since I went into Lizzie Hexam’s 
cottage? ” 

“ We have crowded a good deal into the day,” he returned, 
“ and you were much affected in the churchyard. You are 
over-tired.” 

“ No, I am not at all tired. I have not quite expressed 
what I mean. I don’t mean that I feel as if a great space 
of time had gone by, but that I feel as if much had happened 
— to myself, you know.” 

For good, I hope?” 

“ I hope so,” said Bella. 

“You are cold; I felt you tremble. Pray let me put this 
wrapper of mine about you. May I fold it over this shoulder 
without injuring your dress? Now it will be too heavy and 
too long. Let me carry this end over my arm. as you have 
no arm to give me.” 

Yes, she had though. How she got it out in her muffled 
state, Heaven knows; but she got it out somehow — there it 
was — and slipped it through the Secretary’s. 

“ I have had a long and interesting talk with Lizzie, Mr. 
Rokesmith, and she gave me her full confidence.” 

“ She could not withhold it,” said the Secretary. 

“ I wonder how you come,” said Bella, stopping short as 
she glanced at him, “ to say to me just what she said about 
it!” 


600 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


I infer that it must be because I feel just as she felt 
about it.” 

“And how was that, do you mean to say, sir?” asked 
Bella, moving again. 

“ That if you were inclined to win her confidence — any- 
body’s confidence — you were sure to do it.” 

The railway, at this point, knowingly shutting a green eye 
and opening a red one, they had to run for it. As Bella 
could not mn easily so wrapped iij), the Secretary had to 
help her. When she took her opposite place in the carriage 
corner, the brightness in her face was so charming to behold, 
that on her exclaiming, “ What beautiful stars and what 
a glorious night! ” the Secretary said “ Yes,” but seemed to 
prefer to see the night and the stars in the light of her lovely 
little countenance, to looking out of window. 

O boofer lady, fascinating boofer lady! If I were but 
legally executor of Johnny’s will! If I had but the right 
to pay your legacy and to take your receipt! — Something to 
this purpose surely mingled with the blast of the train as it 
cleared the stations, all knowingly shutting up their green 
eyes and opening their red ones when they prepared to let 
the boofer lady pass. 




CHAPTER X 


SCOUTS OUT 

And so, Miss Wren,” said Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, I 
cannot persuade you to dress me a doll ? ” 

“ No,” replied Miss Wren, snappishly; “ if you want one, 
go and buy one at the shop.” 

“ And my charming young goddaughter,” said Mr. Wray^ 

bum, plaintively, “ down in Hertfordshire ” 

(“ Humbugshire you mean, I think,” interposed Miss 
Wren.) 

“ — is to be put upon the cold footing of the general 
public, and is to derive no advantage from my private ac- 
quaintance with the Court Dressmaker? ” 

If it’s any advantage to your charming godchild — and 
oh, a precious godfather she has got! ” replied Miss Wren, 
pricking at him in the air with her needle, “ to be informed 
that the Court Dressmaker knows your tricks and your 
manners, you may tell her so by post, with my compliments.” 

Miss Wren was busy at her work by candle-light, and 
Mr. Wrayburn, half amused and half vexed, and all idle and 
shiftless, stood by her bench looking on. Miss Wren’s 
troublesome child was in the comer in deep disgrace, and 
exhibiting great wretchedness in the shivering stage of 
prostration from drink. 

Ugh, you disgraceful boy!” exclaimed Miss Wren, 
attracted by the sound of his chattering teeth, “ I wish 
they’d all drop down your throat and play at dice in your 
stomach! Boh, wicked child! Bee-baa, black sheep! ” 

On her accompanying each of these reproaches with a 
threatening stamp of the foot, the wretched creature protested 
with a whine. 

“Pay five shillings for you indeed!” Miss Wren pro- 


602 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


ceeded; “how many hours do you suppose it costs me to 
earn five shillings, you infamous boy? — Don’t cry like that, 
or I’ll throw a doll at you. Pay five shillings fine for you 
indeed. Fine in more ways than one, I think! I’d give the 
dustman five shillings to carry you off in the dust cart.” 

“ No, no,” pleaded the absurd creature. “ Please! ” 

“ He’s enough to break his mother’s heart, is this boy,” 
said Miss Wren, half appealing to Eugene. “ I wish I had 
never brought him up. He’d be sharper than a serpent’s 
tooth, if he wasn’t as dull as ditch water. Look at him. 
There’s a pretty object for a parent’s eyes! ” 

Assuredly, in his worse than swinish state (for swine at 
least fatten on their guzzling, and make themselves good to 
eat), he was a pretty object for any eyes. 

“ A muddling and a swipey old child,” said Miss Wren, 
rating him with great severity, “ fit for nothing but to be 
preserved in the liquor that destroys him, and put in a great 
glass bottle as a sight for other swipey children of his own 
pattern, — if he has no consideration for his liver, has he 
none for his mother?” 

“ Yes. Deration, oh don’t! ” cried the subject of these 
angry remarks. 

“ Oh don’t and oh don’t,” pursued Miss Wren. “ It’s oh 
do and oh do. And why do you ? ” 

“ Won’t do so any more. Won’t indeed. Pray! ” 

“ There! ” said Miss Wren, covering her eyes with her 
hand. “ I can’t bear to look at you. Go up-stairs and get 
me my bonnet and shawl. Make yourself useful in some 
way, bad boy, and let me have your room instead of your 
company for one half-minute.” 

Obeying her, he shambled out, and Eugene Wrayburn saw 
the tears exude from between the little creature’s fingers as 
she kept her hand before her eyes. He was sorry, but his 
sympathy did not move his carelessness to do anything but 
feel sorry. 

“I’m going to the Italian Opera to try on,” said Miss 
Wren, taking away her hand after a little while, and laugh- 
ing satirically to hide that she had been crying; “ I must 
see your back before I go, Mr. Wrayburn. Let me first tell 
you, once for all, that it’s of no use your paying visits to 


SCOUTS OUT 603 

me. You wouldn’t get what you want of me, no, not if you 
brought pincers with you to tear it out.” 

Are you so obstinate on the subject of a doll’s dress for 
my godchild?” 

“Ah!” returned Miss Wren with a hitch of her chin, 
“ I am so obstinate. And of course it’s on the subject of 
a doll’s dress — or address — whichever you like. Get along 
and give it up! ” 

Her degraded charge had come back, and was standing 
behind her with the bonnet and shawl. 

“ Give ’em to me and get back into your comer, you 
naughty old thing! ” said Miss Wren, as she turned and 
espied him. “ No, no, I won’t have your help. Go into 
your comer, this minute!” 

The miserable man, feebly rubbing the back of his falter- 
ing hands downwards from the wrists, shuffled on to his 
post of disgrace; but not without a curious glance at Eugene 
in passing him, accompanied with what seemed as if it 
might have been an action of his elbow, if any action of any 
limb or joint he had would have answered truly to his will. 
Taking no more particular notice of him than instinctively 
falling away from the disagreeable contact, Eugene, with 
a lazy compliment or so to Miss Wren, begged leave to light 
his cigar and departed. 

“ Now you prodigal old son,” said Jenny, shaking her 
head and her emphatic little forefinger at her burden, “ you 
sit there till I come back. You dare to move out of your 
comer for a single instant while I’m gone, and I’ll know the 
reason why.” 

With this admonition, she blew her work candles out, 
leaving him to the light of the fire, and, taking her big door- 
key in her pocket and her crutch-stick in her hand, marched 
off. 

Eugene lounged slowly towards the Temple, smoking his 
cigar, but saw no more of the dolls’ dressmaker, through the 
accident of their taking opposite sides of the street. He 
lounged along moodily, and stopped at Charing Cross to look 
about him, with as little interest in the crowd as any man 
might take, and was lounging on again, when a most un- 
expected object caught his eyes. No less an object than 


604 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Jenny Wren’s bad boy trying to make up his mind to cross 
the road. 

A more ridiculous and feeble spectacle than this tottering 
wretch making unsteady sallies into the roadway, and as 
often staggering back again, oppressed by terrors of vehicles 
that were a long way off or were nowhere, the streets could 
not have shown. Over and over again, when the course 
was perfectly clear, he set out, got half-way, described a loop, 
turned, and went back again, when he might have crossed 
and re-crossed half-a-dozen times. Then he would stand 
shivering on the edge of the pavement, looking up the street 
and looking down, while scores of people jostled him, and 
crossed, and went on. Stimulated in course of time by the 
sight of so many successes, he would make another sally, 
make another loop, would all but have his foot on the op- 
posite pavement, would see or imagine something coming, 
and would stagger back again. There he would stand making 
spasmodic preparations as if for a great leap, and at last 
would decide on a start at precisely the wrong moment, 
and would be roared at by drivers, and would shrink back 
once more, and stand in the old spot shivering, with the 
whole of the proceedings to go through again. 

“ It strikes me,” remarked Eugene coolly, after watching 
him for some minutes, “ that my friend is likely to be rather 
behind time if he has any appointment on hand.” With 
which remark he strolled on, and took no further thought 
of him. 

Lightwood was at home when he got to the Chambers, 
and had dined alone there. Eugene drew a chair to the fire 
by which he was having his wine and reading the evening 
paper, and brought a glass, and filled it for good fellowship’s 
sake. 

“ My dear Mortimer, you are the express picture of con- 
tented industry, reposing (on credit) after the virtuous labours 
of the day.” 

“ My dear Eugene, you are the express picture of dis- 
contented idleness not reposing at all. Where have you 
been ? ” 

” I have been,” replied Wrayburn, “ — about town. I have 
turned up at the present juncture, with the intention of 


SCOUTS OUT 605 

consulting my highly intelligent and respectful solicitor on 
the position of my affairs.” 

‘‘ Your highly intelligent and respected solicitor is of 
opinion that your affairs are in a bad way, Eugene.” 

“ Though whether,” said Eugene thoughtfully, that can 
be intelligently said, now, of the affairs of a client who has 
nothing to lose and who cannot possibly be made to pay, 
may be open to question.” 

“ You have fallen into the hands of the Jews, Eugene.” 

“ My dear boy,” returned the debtor, very composedly 
taking up his glass, having previously fallen into the hands 
of some of the Christians, I can bear it with philos- 
ophy.” 

“ I have had an interview to-day, Eugene, with a Jew, who 
seems determined to press us hard. Quite a Shy lock, and 
quite a Patriarch. A picturesque gray-headed and gray- 
bearded old Jew, in a shovel-hat and gaberdine.” 

“ Not,” said Eugene, pausing in setting down his glass, 

surely not my worthy friend Mr. Aaron? ” 

“ He calls himself Mr. Riah.” 

“ By-the-bye,” said Eugene, “ it comes into my mind that 
— no doubt with an instinctive desire to receive him into the 
bosom of our Church — J gave him the name of Aaron! ” 

“ Eugene, Eugene,” returned Lightwood, “ you are more 
ridiculous than usual. Say what you mean.” 

Merely, my dear fellow, that I have the lionour and 
pleasure of a speaking acquaintance with such a Patriarch as 
you describe, and that I address him as Mr. Aaron, because 
it appears to me Hebraic, expressive, appropriate, and com- 
plimentary. Notwithstanding which strong reasons for its 
being his name, it may not be his name.” 

“ I believe you are the absurd est man on the face of the 
earth,” said Lightwood, laughing. 

“ Not at all, I assure you. Did he mention that he knew 
me?” 

“ He did not. He only said of you that he expected to be 
paid by you.” 

Which looks,” remarked Eugene, with much gravity, 
like not knowing me. I hope it may not be my worthy 
friend Mr. Aaron, for, to tell you the truth, Mortimer, I doubt 


606 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


he may have a prepossession against me. I strongly suspect 
him of having had a hand in spiriting away Lizzie,” 

“ Everything,” returned Lightwood impatiently, “ seems, 
by a fatality, to bring us round to Lizzie. ‘ About town ’ 
meant about Lizzie, just now, Eugene.” 

“ My solicitor, do you know,” observed Eugene, turning 
round to the furniture, “ is a man of infinite discernment.” 

“Did it not, Eugene?” 

“ Yes, it did, Mortimer.” 

“ x\nd yet, Eugene, you know you do not really care for 
her.” 

Eugene Wrayburn rose, and put his hands in his pockets, 
and stood with a foot on the fender, indolently rocking his 
body and looking at the fire. After a prolonged pause, he 
replied: “ I don’t know that. I must ask you not to say that, 
as if we took it for granted.” 

“But if you do care for her, so much the more should you 
leave her to herself.” 

Having again paused as before, Eugene said: “I don’t 
know that, either. But tell me. Did you ever see me take 
so much trouble about anything, as about this disappear- 
ance of hers? I ask, for information.” 

“ My dear Eugene, I wish I ever had! ” 

“Then you have not? Just so. You confirm my own 
impression. Does that look as if I cared for her? I ask, 
for information.” 

“ I asked you for information, Eugene,” said Mortimer, 
reproachfully. 

“ Dear boy, I know it, but I can’t give it. I thirst for 
information. What do I mean? If my taking so much 
trouble to recover her does not mean that I care for her, 
what does it mean ? ‘ If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled 
pepper, where’s the peck,’ &c. ? ” 

Though he said this gaily, he said it with a perplexed 
and inquisitive face, as if he actually did not know what to 
make of himself. “ Look on to the end — ” Lightwood was 
beginning to remonstrate, when he caught at the words: 

“Ah! See now! That’s exactly what I am incapable n+‘ 
doing. How very acute you are, Mortimer, in finding m 
weak place! When we were at school together, I got 


SCOUTS OUT 


607 


my lessons at the last moment, day by day and bit by bit; 
now we are out in life together, I get up my lessons in the 
same way. In the present task I have not got beyond this: 
— I am bent on finding Lizzie, and I mean to find her, and 
I will take any means of finding her that offer themselves. 
Fair means or foul means are all alike to me. I ask you — 
for information — what does that mean ? When I have found 
her I may ask you — also for information — what do I mean 
now? But it would be premature in this stage, and it’s not 
the character of my mind.” 

Lightwood was shaking his head over the air with which 
his friend held forth thus — an air so whimsically open and 
argumentative as almost to deprive what he said of the 
appearance of evasion — when a shuffling was heard at the 
outer door, and then an undecided knock, as though some 
hand were groping for the knocker. “ The frolicsome youth 
of the neighbourhood,” said Eugene, “ whom I should be 
delighted to pitch from this elevation into the churchyard 
below, without any intermediate ceremonies, have probably 
turned the lamp out. I am on duty to-night, and will see 
to the door.” 

His friend had barely had time to recall the unprecedented 
gleam of determination with which he had spoken of finding 
this girl, and which had faded out of him with the breath of 
the spoken words, when Eugene came back, ushering in a 
most disgraceful shadow of a man, shaking from head to foot, 
and clothed in shabby grease and smear. 

“ This interesting gentleman,” said Eugene, “ is the son — 
the occasionally rather trying son, for he has his failings — 
of a lady of my acquaintance. My dear Mortimer — Mr. 
Dolls.” Eugene had no idea what his name was, knowing 
the little dressmaker’s to be assumed, but presented him with 
easy confidence under the first appellation that his associations 
suggested. 

“ I gather, my dear Mortimer,” pursued Eugene, as Light- 
wood stared at the obscene visitor, ‘‘ from the manner of 
Mr. Dolls — which is occasionally complicated — that he 
desires to make some communication to me. I have men- 
tioned to Mr. Dolls that you and I are on terms of confidence, 
and have requested Mr. Dolls to develop his views here.” 


608 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


The wretched object being much embarrassed by holding 
what remained of his hat, Eugene airily tossed it to the 
door, and put him down in a chair. 

“ It will be necessary, I think,” he observed, “ to wind up 
Mr. Dolls, before anything to any mortal purpose can be got 
out of him. Brandy, Mr. Dolls, or ? ” 

” Threepenn’orth Rum,” said Mr. Dolls. 

A judiciously small quantity of the spirit was given him 
in a wine-glass, and he began to convey it to his mouth, 
with all kinds of falte rings and gyrations on the road. 

” The nerves of Mr. Dolls,” remarked Eugene to Light- 
wood, “ are considerably unstrung. And I deem it on the 
whole expedient to fumigate Mr. Dolls.” 

He took the shovel from the grate, sprinkled a few live 
ashes on it, and from a box on the chimney piece took a 
few pastilles, which he set upon them; then, with great 
composure, began placidly waving the shovel in front of Mr. 
Dolls, to cut him off from his company. 

” Lord bless my soul, Eugene! ” cried Lightwood, laughing 
again, “ what a mad fellow you are! Why does this creature 
come to see you ? ” 

” We shall hear,” said Wrayburn, very observant of his 
face withal. “ Now then. Speak out. Don’t be afraid. 
State your business, Dolls.” 

“Mist Wrayburn!” said the visitor, thickly and huskily. 
“ — ^Tis Mist Wrayburn, ain’t?” With a stupid stare. 

“ Of course it is. Look at me. What do you 
want? ” 

Mr. Dolls collapsed in his chair, and faintly said “ Three- 
penn’orth Rum.” 

“ Will you do me the favour, my dear Mortimer, to wind 
up Mr. Dolls again?” said Eugene. “ I am occupied with 
the fumigation.” 

A similar quantity was poured into his glass, and he got 
it to his lips by similar circuitous ways. Having drunk it, 
Mr. Dolls, with an evident fear of running down again unless 
he made haste, proceeded to business. 

“ Mist Wrayburn. Tried to nudge you, but you wouldn’t 
You want that drection. You want t’know where she lives. 
Do you, Mist Wrayburn? ” 


1 




609 




lOUTS OUT 


With a glance at his jrR'gtli6>;>((?r)lioAo the 

sternly, “ I do/’ ^ 

“ I am er man,” said Mr. Dolls, trying to smite himself 
on the breast, but bringing his hand to bear upon the vicinity 
of his eye, “ er do it. I am er man er do it.” 

“ What are you the man to do? ” demanded Eugene, still 
sternly. 

“ Er give up that drection.” 

“ Have you got it? ” 

With a most laborious attempt at pride and dignity, Mr. 
Dolls rolled his head for some time, awakening the highest 
expectations, and then answered, as if it were the happiest 
point that could possibly be expected of him: “ No.” 

“ What do you mean then? ” 

Mr. Dolls, collapsing in the drowsiest manner after his 
late intellectual triumph, replied : “ Threepenn’orth Rum.” 

“ Wind him up again, my dear Mortimer,” said Wrayburn; 
“ wind him up again.” 

“ Eugene, Eugene,” urged Lightwood in a low voice, as he 
complied, “ can you stoop to the use of such an instrument 
as this ? ” 

“ I said,” was the reply, made with that former gleam of 
determination, “ that I would find her out by any means, 
fair or foul. These are foul, and I’ll take them — if I am 
not first tempted to break the head of Mr. Dolls with the 
fumigator. Can you get the direction ? Do you mean that ? 
Speak! If that’s what you have come for, say how much 
you want.” 

“ Ten shillings — Threepenn’orths Rum,” said Mr. Dolls. 

“You shall have it.” 

“Fifteen shillings — Threepenn’orths Rum,” said Mr. 
Dolls, making an attempt to stiffen himself. 

“You shall have it. Stop at that. How will you get 
the direction you talk of?” 

“ I am er man,” said Mr. Dolls, with majesty, “ er get it, 
sir.” 

“ How will you get it, I ask you ? ” 

“ I am ill-used vidual,” said Mr. Dolls. “ Blown up 
morning t’night. Called names. She makes Mint money, 
sir, and never stands Threepenn’orth Rum.” 


610 


RIEND 


OUR MUTUAL S( 

•• bii’ ig-vpping his palsied head with 

the fire-shovel, as it sank on his breast. “ What comes next ? ” 

Making a dignified attempt to gather himself together, 
but, as it were, dropping half-a-dozen pieces of himself while 
he tried in vain to pick up one, Mr. Dolls, swaying his head 
from side to side, regarded his questioner with what he 
supposed to be a haughty smile and a scornful glance. 

“ She looks upon me as mere child, sir. I am not mere 
child, sir. Man. Man talent. Lerrers pass betwixt ^em. 
Postman lerrers. Easy for man talent er get drection, as get 
his own drection.” 

“ Get it then,” said Eugene; adding very heartily under 
his breath, “ — You Brute! Get it, and bring it here to me, 
and earn the money for sixty threepenn’orths of rum, and 
drink them all, one atop of another, and drink yourself dead 
with all possible expedition.” The latter clauses of these 
special instructions he addressed to the fire, as he gave it 
back the ashes he had taken from it, and replaced the 
shovel. 

Mr. Dolls now struck out the highly unexpected discovery 
that he had been insulted by Lightwood, and stated his 
desire to “ have it out with him ” on the spot, and defied him 
to come on, upon the liberal terms of a sovereign to a half- 
penny. Mr. Dolls then fell a-crying, and then exhibited a 
tendency to fall asleep. This last manifestation, as by far the 
most alarming, by reason of its threatening his prolonged 
stay on the premises, necessitated vigorous measures. Eugene 
picked up his worn-out hat with the tongs, clapped it on his 
head, and, taking him by the collar — all this at arm’s length 
— conducted him down-stairs and out of the precincts into 
Fleet Street. There, he turned his face westward, and left 
him. 

When he got back, Lightwood was standing over the fire, 
brooding in a sufficiently low-spirited manner. 

ril wash my hands of Mr. Dolls — physically — ” said 
Eugene, “ and be with you again directly, Mortimer.” 

“ I would much prefer,” retorted Mortimer, “ your washing 
your hands of Mr. Dolls, morally, Eugene.” 

“ So would I,” said Eugene; “ but you see, dear boy, I can’t 
do without him.” 


SCOUTS OUT 


611 


In a minute or two he resumed his chair, as perfectly 
unconcerned as usual, and rallied his friend on having so 
narrowly escaped the prowess of their muscular visitor. 

“ I can’t be amused on this theme/’ said Mortimer, rest- 
lessly. “You can make almost any theme amusing to me, 
Eugene, but not this.” 

“Well!” cried Eugene, “I am a little ashamed of it 
myself, and therefore let us change the subject.” 

“It is so deplorably underhanded,” said Mortimer. “ It 
is so unworthy of you, this setting on of such a shameful 
scout.” 

“We have changed the subject!” exclaimed Eugene, 
airily. “ We have found a new one in that word, scout. 
Don’t be like Patience on a mantelpiece frowning at Dolls, 
but sit down, and I’ll tell you something that you really 
will find amusing. Take a cigar. Look at this of mine. 
I light it — draw one puff — breathe the smoke out — there 
it goes — it’s Dolls ! — it’s gone, and being gone, you are a 
man again.” 

“Your subject,” said Mortimer, after lighting a cigar, 
and comforting himself with a whiff or two, “ was scouts, 
Eugene.” 

“ Exactly. Isn’t it droll that I never go out after dark, 
but I find myself attended, always by one scout, and often 
by two ? ” 

Lightwood took his cigar from his lips in surprise, and 
looked at his friend, as if with a latent suspicion that there 
must be a jest or hidden meaning in his words. 

“ On my honour, no,” said Wrayburn, answering the look 
and smiling carelessly; “ I don’t wonder at your supposing 
so, but on my honour, no. I say what I mean. I never go 
out after dark, but I find myself in the ludicrous situation 
of being followed and observed at a distance, always by one 
scout, and often by two.” 

“ Are you sure, Eugene ? ” 

“ Sure ? My dear boy, they are always the same.” 

“ But there’s no process out against you. The Jews only 
threaten. They have done nothing. Besides, they know 
where to find you, and I represent you. Why take the 
trouble ? ” 


612 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


‘^Observe the legal mind!” remarked Eugene, turning 
round to the furniture again, with an air of indolent rap- 
ture. “ Observe the dyer’s hand, assimilating itself to what 
it works in, — or would work in, if anybody would give it 
anything to do. Respected solicitor, it’s not that. The 
schoolmaster’s abroad.” 

“ The schoolmaster? ” 

‘‘Ay! Sometimes the schoolmaster and the pupil are 
})oth abroad. Why, how soon you rust in my absence! 
A^ou don’t understand yet? Those fellows who were here 
one night. They are the scouts I speak of as doing me the 
honour to attend me after dark.” 

“ How long has this been going on ? ” asked Lightwood, 
opposing a serious face to the laugh of his friend. 

“ I apprehend it has been going on ever since a certain 
person went off. Probably, it had been going on some little 
time before I noticed it; which would bring it to about that 
time:” 

“ Do you think they suppose you to have inveigled her 
away ? ” 

“ My dear Mortimer, you know the absorbing na-ture of 
my professional occupations ; I really have not had leisure to 
think about it.” 

“ Have you asked them what they want ? Have you 
objected ? ” 

“ Why should I ask them what they want, dear fellow, 
when I am indifferent what they want? Why should I 
express objection, when I don’t object?” 

“You are in your most reckless mood. But you called 
the situation just now, a ludicrous one; and most men 
object to that, even those who are utterly indifferent to 
everything else.” 

“You charm me, Mortimer, with your reading of my 
weaknesses. (By-the-bye, that very word, Reading, in its 
critical use, always charms me. An actress’s Reading of a 
chambermaid, a dancer’s Reading of a hornpipe, a singer’s 
Reading of a song, a marine painter’s Reading of the sea, 
the kettle-drum’s Reading of an instrumental passage, are 
phrases ever youthful and delightful.) 1 was mentioning 
your perception of my weaknesses. I own to the weakness 


SCOUTS OUT 613 

of objecting to occupy a ludicrous position, and therefore I 
transfer the position to the scouts.’" 

“ I wish, Eugene, you would speak a little more soberly 
and plainly, if it were only out of consideration for my feel- 
ing less at ease than you do.” 

“ Then soberly and plainly, Mortimer, I goad the school- 
master to madness. I make the schoolmaster so ridiculous, 
and so aware of being made- ridiculous, that I see him chafe 
and fret at every pore when we cross one another. The 
amiable occupation has been the solace of my life, since I 
was baulked in the manner unnecessary to recall. I have 
derived inexpressible comfort from it. I do it thus: I stroll 
out after dark, stroll a little way, look in at a window and 
furtively look out for the schoolmaster. Sooner or later, I 
perceive the schoolmaster on the watch; sometimes accom- 
panied by his hopeful pupil; oftener pupil-less. Having 
made sure of his watching me, I tempt him on, all over 
London. One night I go east, another night north, in a few 
nights I go all round the compass. Sometimes, I walk; 
somejtimes, I proceed in cabs, draining the pocket of the 
schoolmaster, who then follows in cabs. I study and get up 
abstruse No Thoroughfares in the course of the day. With 
Venetian mystery I seek those No Thoroughfares at night, 
glide into them by means of dark courts, tempt the school- 
master to follow, turn suddenly, and catch him before he 
can retreat. Then we face one another, and I pass him as 
unaware of his existence, and he undergoes grinding tor- 
ments. Similarly, I walk at a great pace down a short 
street, rapidly turn the comer, and, getting out of his view, 
as rapidly turn back. I catch him coming on post, again 
pass him as unaware of his existence, and again he undergoes 
grinding torments. Night after night his disappointment is 
acute, but hope springs eternal in the scholastic breast, and 
he follows me again to-morrow. Thus I enjoy the pleasures 
of the chase, and derive great benefit from the healthful 
exercise. When I do not enjoy the pleasures of the chase, 
for anything I know he watches at the Temple Gate all 
night.” 

“ This is an extraordinary story,” observed Lightwood, who 
had heard it out with serious attention. “ I don’t like it.” 


614 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ You are a little hipped, dear fellow,” said Eugene; “ you 
have been too sedentary. Come and enjoy the pleasures of 
the chase.” 

“ Do you mean that you believe he is watching now ? ” 

** I have not the slightest doubt he is.” 

“ Have you seen him to-night ? ” 

“ I forgot to look for him when I was last out,” returned 
Eugene, with the calmest indifference; ‘‘ but I dare say he 
was there. Come! Be a British sportsman, and enjoy the 
pleasures of the chase. It will do you good.” 

Lightwood hesitated; but, yielding to his curiosity, rose. 

“ Bravo! ” cried Eugene, rising too. “ Or, if Yoicks would 
be in better keeping, consider that I said Yoicks. Look to 
your feet, Mortimer, for we shall try your boots. When 
you are ready I am — need I say with a Hey Ho Chivy, 
and likewise with a Hark Forward, Hark Forward, Tan- 
tivy?” 

“Will nothing make you serious ? ” said Mortimer, laugh- 
ing through his gravity. 

“ I am always serious, but just now I am a little excited 
by the glorious fact that a southerly wind and a cloudy sky 
proclaim a hunting evening. Ready? So. We turn out 
the lamp and shut the door, and take the field,” 

As the two friends passed out of the Temple into the 
public street, Eugene demanded with a show of courteous 
patronage in which direction Mortimer would like the run 
to be? “ There is a rather difficult country about Bethnal 
Green,” said Eugene, “ and we have not taken in that 
direction lately. What is your opinion of Bethnal Green? ” 
Mortimer assented to Bethnal Green, and they turned east- 
ward. “ Now, when we come to St. Paul’s churchyard,” 
pursued Eugene, “ we’ll loiter artfully, and I’ll show you 
the schoolmaster.” But they both saw him before they got 
there; alone, and stealing after them in the shadow of the 
houses, on the opposite side of the way. 

“ Get your wind,” said Eugene, “ for I am off directly. 
Does it occur to you that the boys of Merry England will 
begin to deteriorate in an educational light, if this lasts long ? 
The schoolmaster can’t attend to me and the boys too. Got 
your wind? I am off!” 


SCOUTS OUT 


615 


At what a rate he went, to breathe the schoolmaster; and 
how he then lounged and loitered, to put his patience to 
another kind of wear; what preposterous ways he took, with 
no other object on earth than to disappoint and punish him; 
and how he wore him out by every piece of ingenuity that 
his eccentric humour could devise; all this Lightwood noted, 
with a feeling of astonishment that so careless a man could 
be so wary, and that so idle a man could take so much trouble. 
At last, far on in the third hour of the pleasures of the chase, 
when he had brought the poor dogging wretch round again 
into the City, he twisted Mortimer up a few dark entries, 
twisted him into a little square court, twisted him sharp 
round again, and they almost ran against Bradley Head- 
stone. 

“ And you see, as I was saying, Mortim.er,” remarked 
Eugene aloud, with the utmost coolness, as though there 
were no one within hearing but themselves; “ and you see, 
as I was saying — undergoing grinding torments.” 

It was not too strong a phrase for the occasion. Looking 
like the hunted, and not the hunter, baffled, worn, with the 
exhaustion of deferred hope and consuming hate and anger 
in his face, white-lipped, wild-eyed, draggle- haired, seamed 
with jealousy and anger, and torturing himself with the 
conviction that he showed it all and they exulted in it, he 
went by them in the dark, like a haggard head suspended 
in the air: so completely did the force of his expression 
cancel his figure. 

Mortimer Idghtwood was not an extraordinarily impres- 
sible man, but this face impressed him. He spoke of it 
more than once on the remainder of the way home, and more 
than once when they got home. 

They had been abed in their respective rooms two or three 
hours, when Eugene was partly awakened by hearing a foot- 
step going about, and was fully awakened by seeing Light- 
wood standing at his bedside. 

“Nothing wrong, Mortimer?” 

“ No.” 

“ What fancy takes you, then, for walking about in the 
night? ” 

“ I am horribly wakeful.” 


616 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 

“ How comes that about, I wonder? ” 

“ Eugene, I cannot lose sight of that fellow’s face.” 

“ Odd,” said Eugene, with a light laugh, I can.” And 
turned over, and fell asleep again. 


CHAPTER XI 


IN THE DARK 

There was no sleep for Bradley Headstone on that night 
when Eugene Wraj^bum turned so easily in his bed; there 
was no sleep for little Miss Peecher. Bradley consumed the 
lonely hours, and consumed himself, in haunting the spot 
where his careless rival lay a-dreaming; little Miss Peecher 
wore them away in listening for the return home of the 
master of her heart, and in sorrowfully presaging that much 
was amiss with him. Yet more was amiss with him than 
Miss Peecher’s simply arranged little work-box of thoughts, 
fitted with no gloomy and dark recesses, could hold. For 
the state of the man was murderous. 

The state of the man was murderous, and he knew it 
More; he irritated it, with a kind of perverse pleasure akin 
to that which a sick man sometimes has in irritating a wound 
upon his body. Tied up all day with his disciplined show 
upon him, subdued to the performance of his routine of 
educational tricks, encircled by a gabbling crowd, he broke 
loose at night like an ill-tamed wild animal. Under his 
daily restraint, it was his compensation, not his trouble, to 
give a glance towards his state at night, and to the freedom 
of its being indulged. If great criminals told the truth — 
which, being great criminals, they do not — they would very 
rarely tell of their struggles against the crime. Their struggles 
are towards it. They buffet with opposing waves to gain the 
bloody shore, not to recede from it. This man perfectly 
comprehended that he hated his rival with his strongest and 
worst forces, and that if he tracked him to I^izzie Hexam, 
his so doing would never serve himself with her, or serve her 
All his pains were taken, to the end that he might incense 
himself with the sight of the detested figure in her company 


618 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


and favour, in her place of concealment. And he knew as 
well what act of his would follow if he did, as he knew that 
his mother had borne him. Granted, that he may not have 
held it necessary to make express mention to himself of the 
one familiar truth any more than of the other. 

He knew equally well that he fed his wrath and hatred, 
and that he accumulated provocation and self-justification, 
by being made the nightly sport of the reckless and insolent 
Eugene. Knowing all this, and still always going on with 
infinite endurance, pains, and perseverance, could his dark 
soul doubt whither he went? 

Baffled, exasperated, and weary, he lingered opposite the 
Temple gate when it closed on Wrayburn and Lightwood, 
debating with himself should he go home for that time or 
should he watch longer. Possessed in his jealousy by the 
fixed idea that Wrayburn was in the secret, if it were not 
altogether of his contriving, Bradley was as confident of 
getting the better of him at last by sullenly sticking to him, 
as he would have been — and often had been — of mastering 
any piece of study in the way of his vocation, by the like 
slow persistent process. A man of rapid passions and sluggish 
intelligence, it had served him often and should serve him 
again. 

The suspicion crossed him as he rested in a doorway with 
his eyes upon the Temple gate, that perhaps she was even 
concealed in that set of Chambers. It would furnish another 
reason for Wrayburn’ s purposeless walks, and it might be. 
He thought of it and thought of it, until he resolved to steal 
up the stairs, if the gate-keeper would let him through, and 
listen. So the haggard head suspended in the air flitted 
across the road, like the spectre of one of the many heads 
erst hoisted upon neighbouring Temple Bar, and stopped 
before the watchman. 

The watchman looked at it, and asked; Who for? ” 

“ Mr. Wrayburn.” 

It’s very late.” 

He came back with Mr. Lightwood, I know, near upon 
two hours ago. But if he has gone to bed. I’ll put a paper 
in his letter-box. I am expected.” 

The watchman said no more, but opened the gate, though 


IN THE DARK 


619 


rather doubtfully. Seeing, however, that the visitor went 
straight and fast in the right direction, he seemed satis- 
fied. 

The haggard head floated up the dark staircase, and softly 
descended nearer to the floor outside the outer door of the 
chambers. The doors of the rooms within appeared to be 
standing open. There were rays of candlelight from one of 
them, and there was the sound of a footstep going about. 
There were two voices. The words they uttered were not 
distinguishable, but they were both the voices of men. In 
a fevr moments the voices were silent, and there was no 
sound of footstep, and the inner light went out. If Light- 
wood could have seen the face which kept him awake, staring 
and listening in the darkness outside the door as he spoke of 
it, he might have been less disposed to sleep through the 
remainder of the night. 

“ Not there,” said Bradley, but she might have been.” 
The head arose to its former height from the ground, floated 
down the staircase again, and passed on to the gate. A man 
was standing there in parley with the watchman. 

“ Oh! ” said the watchman. “ Here he is! ” 

Perceiving himself to be the antecedent, Bradley looked 
from the watchman to the man. 

“ This man is leaving a letter for Mr. Light wood,” the 
watchman explained, showing it in his hand; “and I was 
mentioning that a person had just gone up to Mr. Light- 
wood’s chambers. It might be the same business perhaps ? ” 

“ No,” said Bradley, glancing at the man, who was a 
stranger to him. 

“ No,” the man assented in a surly way; “ my letter — it’s 
wrote by my daughter, but it’s mine — it’s about my business, 
and my business ain’t nobody else’s business.” 

As Bradley passed out of the gate with an undecided foot, 
he heard it shut behind him, and heard the footstep of the 
man coming after him. 

“ ’Sense me,” said the man, who appeared to have been 
drinking, and rather stumbled at him than touched him, to 
attract his attention; “but might you be acquainted with 
the T’other Governor ? ” 

“ With whom? ” asked Bradley. 


620 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ With,” returned the man, pointing backward over his 
right shoulder with his right thumb, “ the T’other Gov- 
ernor? ” 

“ I don’t know what you mean.” 

“ Why, look here,” hooking his proposition on his left-hand 
fingers with the forefinger of his right. “ There’s two Gov- 
ernors, ain’t there ? One and one, two — Lawyer Light- 
wood, my first finger, he’s one, ain’t he? Well; might you 
be acquainted with my middle finger, the T’other ? ” 

“ I know quite as much of him,” said Bradley, with a 
frown and a distant look before him, “ as I want to know.” 

“Hooroar!” cried the man. “ Hooroar T’other T’other 
Governor. Hooroar T’otherest Governor! I am of your 
way of thinkin’.” 

“ Don’t make such a noise at this dead hour of the night. 
What are you talking about ? ” 

“ Look here, T’otherest Governor,” replied the man, be- 
coming hoarsely confidential. “ The T’other Governor he’s 
always joked his jokes agin me, owing, as I believe, to my 
being a honest man as gets my living by the sweat of my 
brow. Which he ain’t, and he don’t.” 

“ What is that to me? ” 

“ T’otherest Governor,” returned the man in a tone of in- 
jured innocence, “ if you don’t care to hear no more, don’t 
hear no more. You begun it. You said, and likewise showed 
pretty plain, as you warn’t by no means friendly to him. 
But I don’t seek to force my company nor yet my opinions 
on no man. I am a honest man, that’s what I am. Put me 
in the dock anywhere — I don’t care where — and I says, 

‘ My Lord, I am a honest man.’ Put me in the witness- 
box anywhere — I don’t care where — and I says the same to 
his lordship, and I kisses the book. I don’t kiss my coat- 
cuff; I kisses the book.” 

It was not so much in deference to these strong testi- 
monials to character, as in his restless casting about for any 
way or help towards the discovery on which he was con- 
centrated, that Bradley Headstone replied: “You needn’t 
take offence. I didn’t mean to stop you. You were too 
loud in the open street; that was all.” 

“ T’otherest Governor,” replied Mr. Riderhood, mollified 


IN THE DARK 


621 


and mysterious, I know wot it is to be loud, and I know 
wot it is to be soft. Naturally I do* It would be a wonder 
if I did not, being by the Chris’ en name of Roger, which 
took it arter my own father, which took it from his own 
father, though which of our fam’ly fust took it nat’ral I will 
not in any ways mislead you by undertakin’ to say. And 
wishing that your elth may be better than your looks, which 
your inside must be bad indeed if it’s on the footing of your 
out.” 

Startled by the implication that his face revealed too much 
of his mind, Bradley made an effort to clear his brow. It 
might be worth knowing what this strange man’s business was 
with Lightwood, or Wrayburn, or both, at such an unseason- 
able hour. He set himself to find out, for the man might 
prove to be a messenger between those two. 

“You call at the Temple late,” he remarked, with a lumber- 
ing show of ease. 

Wish I may die,” cried Mr. Riderhood, with a hoarse 
laugh, “ if I warn’t a-goin’ to say the self-same words to you, 
T’otherest Governor! ” 

“ It chanced so with me,” said Bradley, looking discon- 
certedly about him. 

“ And it chanced so with me,” said Riderhood. But 
I don’t mind telling you how. Why should I mind telling 
you? I’m a Deputy Lock-keeper up the river, and I was 
off duty yes’ day, and I shall be on to-morrow.” 

“Yes?” 

“ Yes, and I come to London to look arter my private 
affairs. My private affairs is to get appinted to the Lock as 
reg’lar keeper at fust-hand, and to have the law of a Busted 
B’low-B ridge steamer which drownded of me. I ain’t a-goin 
to be drownded and not paid for it! ” 

Bradley looked at him, as though he were claiming to be 
a Ghost. 

“ The Steamer,” said Mr. Riderhood, obstinately, “ run me 
down and drownded of me. Interference on the part of 
other parties brought me round; but I never asked ’em to 
bring me round, nor yet the steamer never asked ’em to it. 
I mean to be paid for the life as the steamer took.” 

“ Was that your business at Mr. Lightwood’s chambers in 


622 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


the middle of the night?” asked Bradley, eyeing him with 
distrust. 

“ That, and to get a writing to be fust-hand Lock-keeper. 
A recommendation in writing being looked for, who else 
ought to give it to me ? As I says in the letter in my daugh- 
ter's hand, with my mark put to it to make it good in law, 
Who but you, Lawyer Lightwood, ought to hand over this 
here stifficate, and who but you ought to go in for damages 
on my account agin the Steamer? For (as I says under my 
mark) I have had trouble enough along of you and your 
friend. If you, Lawyer Light wood, had backed me good 
and true, and if the T’other Governor had took me down 
correct (I says under my mark), I should have been worth 
money at the present time, instead of having a barge-load of 
bad names chucked at me, and being forced to eat my words, 
which is a unsatisfying sort of food, wotever a man’s appe- 
tite! And when you mention the middle of the night, 
T’otherest Governor,” growled Mr. Riderhood, winding up 
his monotonous summary of his wrongs, “ throw your eye 
on this here bundle under my arm, and bear in mind that 
I’m a-walking back to my Lock, and that the Temple laid 
upon my line of road.” 

Bradley Headstone’s face had changed during this latter 
recital, and he had observed the speaker with a more sus- 
tained attention. 

“ Do you know,” said he, after a pause, during which they 
walked on side by side, “ that I believe I could tell you your 
name, if I tried ? ” 

“ Prove your opinion,” was the answer, accompanied with 
a stop and a stare. “ Try.” 

“ Your name is Riderhood.” 

“ I’m blest if it ain’t,” returned that gentleman. “But 
I don’t know your’n.” 

“ That’s quite another thing,” said Bradley. “ I never 
supposed you did.” 

As Bradley walked on meditating, the Rogue walked on 
at his side muttering. The purport of the muttering was; 
“that Rogue Riderhood, by George! seemed to be made 
public property on, now, and that every man seemed to 
think himself free to handle his name as if it was a Street 


IN THE DARK 623 

Pump.” The purport of the meditating was: “ Here is an 
instrument. Can I use it?” 

They had walked along the Strand, and into Pall Mall, 
and had turned up-hill towards Hyde Park Corner; Bradley 
Headstone waiting on the pace and lead of Riderhood, and 
leaving him to indicate the course. So slow were the school- 
master’s thoughts, and so indistinct his purposes when they 
were but tributary to the one absorbing purpose — or rather 
when, like dark trees under a stormy sky, they only lined 
the long vista at the end of which he saw those two figures 
of Wrayburn and Lizzie on which his eyes were fixed — that 
at least a good half-mile was traversed before he spoke again. 
Even then, it was only to ask: 

“ Where is your Lock? ” 

” Twenty mile and odd — call it five-and-twenty mile and 
odd, if you like — up stream,” was the sullen reply. 

“ How is it called? ” 

” Plash water Weir Mill Lock.” 

“ Suppose I was to offer you five shillings; what then? ” 

“ Why, then, I’d take it,” said Mr. Riderhood. 

The schoolmaster put his hand in his pocket, and pro- 
duced two half-crowns, and placed them in Mr. Riderhood’s 
palm: who stopped at a convenient doorstep to ring them 
both, before acknowledging their receipt. 

“ There’s one thing about you, T’otherest Governor,” said 
Riderhood, faring on again, “ as looks well and goes fur. 
You’re a ready-money man. Now; ” when he had carefully 
pocketed the coins on that side of himself which was furthest 
from his new friend; “ what’s this for? ” 

“ For you.” 

“ Why, o’ course I know that” said Riderhood, as arguing 
something that was self-evident. ” O’ course I know very 
well as no man in his right senses would suppose as any- 
think would make me give it up agin when I’d once got it. 
But what do you want for it? ” 

” I don’t know that I want anything for it. Or if I do 
want anything for it, I don’t know what it is.” Bradley 
gave this answer in a stolid, vacant, and self-communing 
manner, which Mr. Riderhood found very extraordinary. 

“You have no goodwill towards this Wrayburn,” said 


624 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Bradley, coming to the name in a reluctant and forced way. 
as if he were dragged to it. 

“ No.” 

“ Neither have I.” 

Riderhood nodded, and asked : “ Is it for that ? ” 

“ It’s as much for that as anything else. It’s something 
to be agreed with, on a subject that occupies so much of 
one’s thoughts.” 

“ It don’t agree with you,” returned Mr. Riderhood, 
bluntly. “ No! It don’t, T’otherest Governor, and it’s no 
use a-lookin’ as if you wanted to make out that it did. I tell 
you it rankles in you. It rankles in you, rusts in you, and 
pisons you.” 

“ Say that it does so,” returned Bradley, with quivering 
lips; “ is there no cause for it? ” 

“ Cause enough. I’ll bet a pound! ” cried Mr. Riderhood. 

“ Haven’t you yourself declared that the fellow has heaped 
provocation, insults, and affronts on you, or something to 
that effect? He has done the same by me. He is made of 
venomous insults and affronts, from the crown of his head to 
the sole of his foot. Are you so hopeful or so stupid, as not 
to know that he and the other will treat your application 
with contempt, and light their cigars with it? ” 

“ I shouldn’t wonder if they did, by George,” said Rider- 
hood, turning angry. 

“If they did! They will. Let me ask you a question. 
I know something more than your name about you; I knew 
something about Gaffer Hexam. When did you last set eyes 
upon his daughter? ” 

“ When did I last set eyes upon his daughter, T’otherest 
Governor? ” repeated Mr. Riderhood, growing intentionally 
slower of comprehension as the other quickened in his 
speech. 

“ Yes. Not to speak to her. To see her — anywhere? ” 

The Rogue had got the clue he wanted, though he held it 
with a clumsy hand. Looking perplexedly at the passionate 
face, as if he were trying to work out a sum in his mind, he 
slowly answered: “ I ain’t set eyes upon her — never once — 
not since the day of Gaffer’s death.” 

“You know her well, by sight? ” 


IN THE DARK 


625 


“ I should think I did ! No one better.” 

“ And you know him as well? ” 

“ Who’s him ? ” asked Riderhood, taking off his hat and 
rubbing his forehead, as he directed a dull look at his ques- 
tioner. 

“ Curse the name! Is it so agreeable to you that you 
want to hear it again ? ” 

“ Oh! Him! ” said Riderhood, who had craftily worked 
the schoolmaster into this corner, that he might again take 
note of his face under its evil possession. I’d know him 
among a thousand.” 

“ Did you ” Bradley tried to ask it quietly; but, do 

what he might with his voice, he could not subdue his face; 
— “ did you ever see them together? ” 

(The Rogue had got the clue in both hands, now.) 

“ I see ’em together, T’otherest Governor, on the very day 
when Gaffer was towed ashore.” 

Bradley could have hidden a reserved piece of information 
from the sharp eyes of a whole inquisitive class, but he could 
not veil from the eyes of the ignorant Riderhood the with- 
held question next in his breast. “ You shall put it plain if 
you want it answered,” thought the Rogue doggedly; “ I ain’t 
a-going a-wolunteering.” 

” Well! was he insolent to her too? ” asked Bradley after 
a struggle. “ Or did he make a show of being kind to 
her?” 

“ He made a show of being most uncommon kind to her,” 
said Riderhood. “ By George! now I ” 

His flying off at a tangent was indisputably natural. 
Bradley looked at him for the reason. 

“ Now I think of it,” said Mr. Riderhood, evasively, for 
he was substituting those words for “ Now I see you so 
jealous,” which was .the phrase really in his mind; “ p’r’aps 
he went and took me down wrong, a purpose, on account o’ 
being sweet upon her!” 

The baseness of confirming him in this suspicion or pretence 
of one (for he could not have really entertained it), was a 
line’s breadth beyond the mark the schoolmaster had reached. 
The baseness of communing and intriguing with the fellow 
who would have set that stain upon her, and upon her brother 


626 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


too, was attained. The line’s breadth further, lay beyond. 
He made no reply, but walked on with a lowering face. 

What he might gain by this acquaintance, he could not 
work out in his slow and cumbrous thoughts. The man had 
an injury against the object of his hatred, and that was 
something; though it was less than he supposed, for there 
dwelt in the man no such deadly rage and resentment as 
burned in his own breast. The man knew her, and might, 
by a fortunate chance, see her or hear of her; that was 
something, as enlisting one pair of eyes and ears the more. 
The man was a bad man, and willing enough to be in his 
pay. That was something, for his own state and purpose 
were as bad as bad could be, and he seemed to derive a vague 
support from the possession of a congenial instrument, though 
it might never be used. 

Suddenly he stood still, and asked Riderhood point-blank 
if he knew where she was? Clearly, he did not know. He 
asked Riderhood if he would be willing, in case any intelli- 
gence of her, or of Wrayburn as seeking her or- associating 
with her, should fall in his way, to communicate it if it were 
paid for? He would be very willing indeed. He was “ agin 
’em both,” he said with an oath, and for why? ’Cause they 
had both stood betwixt him and his getting his living by the 
sweat of his brow. 

“ It will not be long then,” said Bradley Headstone, after 
some more discourse to this effect, “ before we see one another 
again. Here is the country road, and here is the day. Both 
have come upon me by surprise.” 

“ But, T’otherest Governor,” urged Mr. Riderhood, “ I 
don’t know where to find you.” 

“ It is of no consequence. I know where to find you, and 
I’ll come to your Lock.” 

“ But, T’otherest Governor,” urged Mr. Riderhood again, 

no luck never come yet of a dry acquaintance. Let’s wet 
it in a mouthful of rum and milk, T’otherest Governor.” 

Bradley assenting, went with him into an early public- 
house, haunted by unsavoury smells of musty hay and stale 
straw, where returning carts, farmer’s men, gaunt dogs, fowls 
of a beery breed, and certain human night-birds fluttering 
home to roost, were solacing themselves after their several 


IN THE DARK 


627 


manners; and where not one of the night-birds hovering 
about the sloppy bar failed to discern at a glance in the 
passion-wasted night-bird with respectable feathers, the worst 
night-bird of all. 

An inspiration of affection for a half-drunken carter going 
his way led to Mr. Riderhood’s being elevated on a high heap 
of baskets on a waggon, and pursuing his journey recumbent 
on his back with his head on his bundle. Bradley then 
turned to retrace his steps, and by and by struck off through 
little-traversed ways, and by and by reached school and 
home. Up came the sun to find him washed and brushed, 
methodically dressed in decent black coat and waistcoat, 
decent formal black tie, and pepper and salt pantaloons, 
with his decent silver watch in its pocket, and its decent hair- 
guard round his neck: a scholastic huntsman clad for the 
field, with his fresh pack yelping and barking around him. 

Yet more really bewitched than the miserable creatures 
of the much- lamented times, who accused themselves of 
impossibilities under a contagion of horror and the strongly 
suggestive influences of Torture, he had been ridden hard by 
Evil Spirits in the night that was newly gone. He had been 
spurred and whipped and heavily sweated. If a record of the 
sport had usurped the places of peaceful texts from Scripture 
on the wall, the most advanced of the scholars might have 
taken fright and run away from the master. 


CHAPTER XII 


MEANING MISCHIEF 

Up came the sun, streaming all over London, and in its 
glorious impartiality even condescending to make prismatic 
sparkles in the whiskers of Mr. Alfred Lammle as he sat at 
breakfast. In need of some brightening from without was 
Mr. Alfred Lammle, for he had the air of being dull enough 
within, and looked grievously discontented. 

Mrs. Alfred Lammle faced her lord. The happy pair of 
swindlers, with the comfortable tie between them that each 
had swindled the other, sat moodily observant of the table- 
cloth. Things looked so gloomy in the breakfast-room, albeit 
on the sunny side of Sackville Street, that any of the family 
tradespeople glancing through the blinds might have taken 
the hint to send in his account and press for it. But this, 
indeed, most of the family tradespeople had already done, 
without the hint. 

“ It seems to me,” said Mrs. Lammle, “ that you have had 
no money at all ever since we have been married.” 

“ What seems to you,” said Mr. Lammle, “ to have been 
the case, may possibly have been the case. It doesn’t matter.” 

Was it the speciality of Mr. and Mrs. Lammle, or does it 
ever obtain with other loving couples ? In these matrimonial 
dialogues they never addressed each other, but always some 
invisible presence that appeared to take a station about 
midway between them. Perhaps the skeleton in the cupboard 
comes out to be talked to, on such domestic occasions ? 

“ I have never seen any money in the house,” said Mrs. 
Lammle to the skeleton, “ except my own annuity. That I 
swear.” 

“You needn’t take the trouble of swearing,” said Mr. 


MEANING MISCHIEF 629 

Lammle to the skeleton; “ once more, it doesn’t matter. 
You never turned your annuity to so good an account.” 

“ Good an account! In what way? ” asked Mrs. Lammle. 

“ In the way of getting credit, and living well,” said Mr. 
Lammle. 

Perhaps the skeleton laughed scornfully on being intrusted 
with this question and this answer; certainly Mrs. Lammle 
did, and Mr. Lammle did. 

“And what is to happen next?” asked Mrs. Lammle of 
the skeleton. 

“ Smash is to happen next,” said Mr. Lammle to the same 
authority. 

After this, Mrs. Lammle looked disdainfully at the skeleton 
— but without carrying the look on to Mr. Lammle — and 
drooped her eyes. After that, Mr. Lammle did exactly the 
same thing, and drooped his eyes. A servant then entering 
with toast, the skeleton retired into the closet, and shut 
itself up. 

“ Sophronia,” said Mr. Lammle, when the servant had 
withdrawn. And then, very much louder: “ Sophronia! ” 

“Well?” 

“ Attend to me, if you please.” He eyed her sternly until 
she did attend, and then went on. “ I want to take counsel 
with you. Come, come; no more trifling. You know our 
league and covenant. We are to work together for our joint 
interest, and you are as knowing a hand as I am. We 
shouldn’t be together if you were not. What’s to be done? 
We are hemmed into a corner. What shall we do ? ” 

“ Have you no scheme on foot that will bring in any- 
thing? ” 

Mr. Lammle plunged into his whiskers for reflection, and 
came out hopeless: “ No; as adventurers we are obliged to 
play rash games for chances of high winnings, and there has 
been a run of luck against us.” 

She was resuming, “ Have you nothing ” when he 

stopped her. 

“ We, Sophronia. We, we, we.” 

“ Have we nothing to sell? ” 

“ Deuce a bit. I have given a Jew a bill of sale on this 
furniture, and he could take it to-morrow, to-day, now. 


630 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


He would have taken it before now, I believe, but for 
Fledgeby.” 

“ What has Fledgeby to do with him ? ” 

“ Knew him. Cautioned me against him before I got into 
his claws. Couldn’t persuade him then, in behalf of some- 
body else.” 

“ Do you mean that Fledgeby has at all softened him 
towards you ? ” 

“ Us, Sophronia. Us, us, us.” 

“ Towards us? ” 

“ I mean that the Jew has not yet done what he might 
have done, and that Fledgeby takes the credit of having got 
him to hold his hand.” 

“ Do you believe Fledgeby ? ” 

“ Sophronia, I never believe anybody. I never have, my 
dear, since I believed you. But it looks like it.” 

Having given her this back-handed reminder of her 
mutinous observations to the skeleton, Mr. Lammle rose 
from table — perhaps the better to conceal a smile, and a 
white dint or two about his nose — and took a turn on the 
carpet and came to the hearthrug. 

“ If we could have packed the brute off with Georgiana; — 
but however, that’s spilled milk.” 

As Lammle, standing gathering up the skirts of his dress- 
ing-gown with his back to the fire, said this, looking down 
at his wife, she turned pale and looked down at the ground. 
With a sense of disloyalty upon her, and perhaps with a 
sense of personal danger — for she was afraid of him — even 
afraid of his hand and afraid of his foot, though he had never 
done her violence — she hastened to put herself right in his 
eyes. 

If we could borrow money, Alfred ” 

Beg money, borrow money, or steal money. It would be 
all one to us, Sophronia,” her husband struck in. 

“ — Then we could weather this? ” 

“ No doubt. To offer another original and undeniable 
remark, Sophronia, two and two make four.” 

But seeing that she was turning something in her mind, 
he gathered up the skirts of his dressing-gown again, and, 
tucking them under one arm, and collecting his ample 


MEANING MISCHIEF 


631 


whiskers in his other hand, kept his eye upon her 
silently. 

“It is natural, Alfred,’* she said, looking up with some 
timidity into his face, “ to think in such an emergency of 
the richest people we know, and the simplest.” 

“ Just so, Sophronia.” 

“ The Boffins.” 

“ Just so, Sophronia.” 

“ Is there nothing to be done with them? ” 

“ What is there to be done with them, Sophronia? ” 

She cast about in her thoughts again, and he kept his eyes 
upon her as before. 

“ Of course, I have repeatedly thought of the Boffins, 
Sophronia,” he resumed, after a fruitless silence, “ but I 
have seen my way to nothing. They are well guarded. That 
infernal Secretary stands between them and — people of 
merit.” 

“ If he could be got rid of? ” said she, brightening a little, 
after more casting about. 

“Take time, Sophronia,” observed her watchful husband, 
in a patronising manner. 

“ If working him out of the way could be presented in the 
light of a service to Mr. Boffin? ” 

“ Take time, Sophronia.” 

“ We have remarked lately, Alfred, that the old man is 
turning very suspicious and distrustful.” 

“ Miserly too, my dear; which is far the most unpromis- 
ing for us. Nevertheless, take time, Sophronia, take time.” 

She took time, and then said: 

“ Suppose we should address ourselves to that tendency in 
him of which we have made ourselves quite sure. Suppose 
my conscience ” 

“ And we know what a conscience it is, my soul. Yes? ” 

“Suppose my conscience should not allow me to keep to 
myself any longer what that upstart girl told me of the 
Secretary’s having made a declaration to her. Suppose my 
conscience should oblige me to repeat it to Mr. Boffin.” 

“ I rather like that,” said Lammle. 

“ Suppose I so repeated it to Mr Boffin, as to insinuate 
that my sensitive delicacy and honour ” 


632 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Very good words, Sophronia.” 

“ — As to insinuate that our sensitive delicacy and honour,” 
she resumed, with a bitter stress upon the phrase, “ would 
not allow us to be silent parties to so mercenary and design- 
ing a speculation on the Secretary’s part, and so gross a 
breach of faith towards his confiding employer. Suppose I 
had imparted my virtuous uneasiness to my excellent hus- 
band, and he had said, in his integrity, ‘ Sophronia, you 
must immediately disclose this to Mr. Boffin.’ ” 

“ Once more, Sophronia,” observed Lammle, changing the 
leg on which he stood, “ I rather like that.” 

“ You remarked that he is well guarded,” she pursued. 
“ I think so too. But if this should lead to his discharging 
his Secretary, there would be a weak place made.” 

“ Go on expounding, Sophronia. I begin to like this 
very much.” 

“ Having, in our unimpeachable rectitude, done him the 
service. of opening his eyes to the treachery of the person he 
trusted, we shall have established a claim upon him and a 
confidence with him. Whether it can be made much of, or 
little of, we must wait — because we can’t help it — to see. 
Probably we shall make the most of it that is to be made.” 

“ Probably,” said Hammle. 

“ Do you think it impossible,” she asked, in the same cold 
plotting way, “ that you might replace the Secretary? ” 

“ Not impossible, Sophronia. It might be brought about. 
At any rate it might be skilfully led up to.” 

She nodded her understanding of the hint, as she looked 
at the fire. “ Mr. Lammle,” she said, musingly: not without 
a slight ironical touch; “ Mr. Lammle would be so delighted 
to do anything in his power. Mr. Lammle, himself a man 
of business as well as a capitalist. Mr. Lammle, accustomed 
to be intrusted with the most delicate affairs. Mr. Lammle, 
who has managed my own little fortune so admirably, but 
who, to be sure, began to make his reputation with the 
advantage of being a man of property, above temptation, 
and beyond suspicion.” 

Mr. Lammle smiled, and even patted her on the head. 
In his sinister relish of the scheme, as he stood above her, 
making it the subject of his cogitations, he seemed to have 


MEANING MISCHIEF 633 

twice as much nose on his face as he had ever had in his 
life. 

He stood pondering, and she sat looking at the dusty fire 
without moving, for some time. But the moment he began 
to speak again she looked up with a wince and attended to 
him, as if that double-dealing of hers had been in her mind, 
and the fear were revived in her of his hand or his foot. 

“ It appears to me, Sophronia, that you have omitted one 
branch of the subject. Perhaps not, for women understand 
women. We might oust the girl herself?” 

Mrs. Lammle shook her head. “ She has an immensely 
strong hold upon them both, Alfred. Not to be compared 
with that of a paid secretary.” 

“ But the dear child,” said Lammle, with a crooked smile, 

ought to have been open with her benefactor and bene- 
factress. The darling love ought to have reposed unbounded 
confidence in her benefactor and benefactress.” 

Sophronia shook her head again. 

“ Well! Women understand women,” said her husband, 
rather disappointed. “ I don’t press it. It might be the 
making of our fortune to make a clean sweep of them both. 
With me to manage the property, and my wife to manage 
the people — Whew I ” 

Again shaking her head, she returned: “They will never 
quarrel with the girl. They will never punish the girl. We 
must accept the girl, rely upon it.” 

“ Well! ” cried Lammle, shrugging his shoulders, “ so be 
it: only always remember that we don’t want her.” 

“ Now the sole remaining question is,” said Mrs. Lammle, 
“ when shall I begin? ” 

“ You cannot begin too soon, Sophronia. As I have told 
you, the condition of our affairs is desperate, and may be 
blown upon at any moment.” 

“ I must secure Mr. Boffin alone, Alfred. If his wife was 
present, she would throw oil upon the waters. I know I 
should fail to move him to an angry outburst, if his wife was 
there. And as to the girl herself — as I am going to betray 
her confidence, she is equally out of the question.” 

“It wouldn’t do to write for an appointment?” said 
Lammle. 


634 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ No, certainly not. They would wonder among them- 
selves why I wrote, and I want to have him wholly unpre- 
pared.” 

“ Call, and ask to see him alone? ” suggested Lammle. 

“ I would rather not do that either. Leave it to me. Spare 
me the little carriage for to-day, and for to-morrow (if I don’t 
succeed to-day), and I’ll lie in wait for him.” 

It was barely settled when a manly form was seen to 
pass the windows and heard to knock and ring. “ Here’s 
Fledgeby,” said Lammle. “ He admires you, and has a high 
opinion of you. I’ll be out. Coax him to use his influence 
with the Jew. His name is Riah, of the house of Pubsey 
and Co.” Adding these words under his breath, lest he 
should be audible in the erect ears of Mr. Fledgeby, through 
two key-holes and the hall, Lammle, making signals of dis- 
cretion to his servant, went softly up-stairs. 

“ Mr. Fledgeby,” said Mrs. Lammle, giving him a very 
gracious reception, “so glad to see you! My poor dear 
Alfred, who is greatly worried just now about his affairs, 
went out rather early. Dear Mr. Fledgeby, do sit down.” 

Dear Mr. Fledgeby did sit down, and satisfied himself (or, 
judging from the expression of his countenance, dissatisfied 
himself) that nothing new had occurred in the way of whisker- 
sprout since he came round the corner from the Albany. 

“ Dear Mr. Fledgeby, it was needless to mention to you 
that my poor dear Alfred is much worried about his affairs 
at present, for he has told me what a comfort you are to 
him in his temporary difficulties, and what a great service 
you have rendered him.” 

“ Oh! ” said Mr. Fledgeby. 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Lammle. 

“ I didn’t know,” remarked Mr. Fledgeby, trying a new 
part of his chair, “ but that Lammle might be reserved about 
his affairs.” 

“ Not to me,” said Mrs. Lammle, with deep feeling. 

“ Oh, indeed! ” said Fledgeby. 

“ Not to me, dear Mr. Fledgeby. I am his wife.” 

“ Yes. I — I always understood so,” said Mr. Fledgeby. 

“ And as the wife of Alfred, may I, dear Mr. Fledgeby, 
wholly without his authority or knowledge, as I am sure 


MEANING MISCHIEF 


635 


your discernment will perceive, entreat you to continue that 
great service, and once more use your well-earned influence 
with Mr. Riah for a little more indulgence? The name I 
have heard Alfred mention, tossing in his dreams, is Riah; 
is it not ? ” 

“ The name of the Creditor is Riah,” said Mr. Fledgeby, 
with a rather uncompromising accent on his noun-substan- 
tive. “ Saint Mary Axe. Pubsey and Co.” 

“ Oh, yes! ” exclaimed Mrs. Lammle, clasping her hands 
with a certain gushing wildness. “ Pubsey and Co. I ” 

“ The pleading of the feminine ” Mr. Fledgeby began, 

and there stuck so long for a word to get on with, that Mrs. 
Lammle offered him sweetly, “ Heart? ” 

” No,” said Mr. Fledgeby, “ Gender — is ever what a man 
is bound to listen to, and I wish it rested with myself. But 
this Riah is a nasty one, Mrs. Lammle ; he really is.” 

“ Not if you speak to him, dear Mr. Fledgeby.” 

“ Upon my soul and body he is! ” said Fledgeby. 

“ Try. Try once more, dearest Mr. Fledgeby. What is 
there you cannot do, if you will ? ” 

” Thank you,” said Fledgeby, you’re very complimentary 
to say so. I don’t mind trying him again, at your request. 
But of course I can’t answ^er for the consequences. Riah is 
a tough subject, and when he says he’ll do a thing, he’ll 
do it.” 

“ Exactly so,” cried Mrs. Lammle, “ and when he says to 
you he’ll wait, he’ll wait.” 

(“ She is a devilish clever woman,” thought Fledgeby. I 
didn’t see that opening, but she spies it out and cuts into 
it as soon as it’s made.”) 

In point of fact, dear Mr. Fledgeby,” Mrs. Lammle went 
on in a very interesting manner, not to affect concealment 
of Alfred’s hopes, to you who are so much his friend, there 
is a distant break in his horizon.” 

This figure of speech seemed rather mysterious to Fascina- 
tion Fledgeby, who said, “ There’s a what in his — eh? ” 

“ Alfred, dear Mr. Fledgeby, discussed with me this very 
morning before he went out, some prospects he has, which 
might entirely change the aspect of his present troubles.” 

“Really?” said Fledgeby. 


636 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Oh, yes! ” Here Mrs. Lammle brought her handkerchief 
into play. “ And you know, dear Mr. Fledgeby — you who 
study the human heart, and study the world — what an 
affliction it would be to lose position and to lose credit, when 
ability to tide over a very short time might save all appear- 
ances.’* 

“ Oh! ” said Fledgeby. “ Then you think, Mrs. Lammle, 
that if Lammle got time, he wouldn’t burst up ? — To use an 
expression,” Mr. Fledgeby apologetically explained, “ which 
is adopted in the Money Market.” 

“ Indeed yes. Truly, truly, yes! ” 

“ That makes all the difference,” said Fledgeby. “ I’ll 
make a point of seeing Riah at once.” 

“ Blessings on you, dearest Mr. Fledgeby! ” 

“ Not at all,” said Fledgeby. She gave him her hand. 

“ The hand,” said Mr. Fledgeby, “ of a lovely and superior- 
minded female is ever the repayment of a ” 

“ Noble action! ” said Mrs. Lammle, extremely anxious to 
get rid of him. 

“ It wasn’t what I was going to say,” returned Fledgeby, 
who never would, under any circumstances, accept a suggested 
expression, “ but you’re very complimentary. May I imprint 
a — a one — upon it? Good morning! ” 

“I may depend upon your promptitude, dearest Mr. 
Fledgeby?” 

Said Fledgeby, looking back at the door and respectfully 
kissing his hand, “ You may depend upon it.” 

In fact, Mr. Fledgeby sped on his errand of mercy through 
the streets at so brisk a rate that his feet might have been 
winged by all the good spirits that wait on Generosity. 
They might have taken up their station in his breast, too, 
for he was blithe and merry. There was quite a fresh trill 
in his voice, when, arriving at the counting-house in St. 
Mary Axe, and finding it for the moment empty, he trolled 
forth at the foot of the staircase: “Now, Judah, what are 
you up to there ? ” 

The old man appeared, with his accustomed deference. 

“ Halloa! ” said Fledgeby, falling back, with a wink. 
“ You mean mischief, Jerusalem! ” 

The old man raised his eyes inquiringly. 











MEANING MISCHIEF 


637 


“Yes, you do,” said Fledgeby. “Oh, you sinner! Oh, 
you dodger! What! You’re going to act upon that bill of 
sale at Lammle’s, are you? Nothing will turn you, won’t 
it? You won’t be put off for another single minute, won’t 
^you?” 

Ordered to immediate action by the master’s tone and look, 
the old man took up his hat from the little counter where 
it lay. 

“You have been told that he might pull through it, if 
you didn’t go in to win, Wide-Awake; have you?” said 
Fledgeby. “ And it’s not your game that he should pull 
through it; ain’t it? You having got security, and there 
being enough to pay you? Oh, you Jew! ” 

The old man stood irresolute and uncertain for a moment, 
as if there might be further instructions for him in reserve. 

“ Do I go, sir? ” he at length asked in a low voice. 

“Asks me if he Is going?” exclaimed Fledgeby. “Asks 
me, as if he didn’t know his own purpose! Asks me, as if he 
hadn’t got his hat on ready! Asks me, as if his sharp old 
eye — why, it cuts like a knife — wasn’t looking at his walk- 
ing-stick by the door! ” 

“ Do I go, sir? ” 

“Do vou go?” sneered Fledgeby. “Yes, you do go. 
Toddle, Judah! ” 


CHAPTER XIII 


GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM 

Fascination Fledgeby, left alone in the counting-house, 
strolled about with his hat on one side, whistling, and in- 
vestigating the drawers, and prying here and there for any 
small evidences of his being cheated, but could find none. 
“ Not his merit that he don’t cheat me,” was Mr. Fledgeby’s 
commentary delivered with a wink, “ but my precaution.” 
He then with a lazy grandeur asserted his rights as Lord of 
Pubsey and Co. by poking his cane at the stools and boxes, 
and spitting in the fireplace, and so loitered royally to the 
window and looked out into the narrow street, with his 
small eyes just peering over the top of Pubsey and Co.’s 
blind. As a blind in more senses than one, it reminded 
him that he was alone in the counting-house, with the front 
door open. He was moving away to shut it, lest he should 
be injudiciously identified with the establishment, when he 
was stopped by some one coming to the door. 

This some one was the dolls’ dressmaker, with a little 
basket on her arm, and her crutch-stick in her hand. Her 
keen eyes had espied Mr. Fledgeby before Mr. Fledgeby had 
espied her, and he was paralysed in his purpose of shutting 
her out, not so much by her approaching the door, as by 
her favouring him with a shower of nods, the instant he saw 
her. This advantage she improved by hobbling up the steps 
with such dispatch that before Mr. Fledgeby could take 
measures for her finding nobody at home, she was face to 
face with him in the counting-house. 

“ Hope I see you well, sir,” said Miss Wren. “ Mr. Riah 
in?” 

Fledgeby had dropped into a chair, in the attitude of one 
waiting wearily. “ I suppose he will be back soon,” he 


GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM 639 

replied; “ he has cut out and left me expecting him back, 
in an odd way. Haven’t I seen you before ? ” 

“ Once before — if you had your eyesight,” replied Miss 
Wren; the conditional clause in an under-tone. 

“ When you were carrying on some games up at the top of 
the house. I remember. How’s your friend ? ” 

“ I have more friends than one, sir, I hope,” replied Miss 
Wren. “Which friend?” 

“ Never mind,” said Mr. Fledgeby, shutting up one eye. 
“ any of your friends, all your friends. Are they preti; 
tolerable ? ” 

Somewhat confounded. Miss Wren parried the pleasantry, 
and sat down in a corner behind the door, with her basket 
in her lap. By and by, she said, breaking a long and patient 
silence : 

“ I beg your pardon, sir, but I am used to find Mr. Riah 
at this time, and so I generally come at this time. I only 
want to buy my poor little two shillings’ worth of waste. 
Perhaps you’ll kindly let me have it, and I’ll trot off to my 
work.” 

“/ let you have it?” said Fledgeby, turning his head 
towards her; for he had been sitting blinking at the light, 
and feeling his cheek. “ Why, you don’t really suppose that 
I have anything to do with the place, or the business; do 
you ? ” 

“ Suppose? ” exclaimed Miss Wren. “ He said, that day, 
you were the master! ” 

“The old cock in black said? Riah said? Why, he’d 
say anything.” 

“ Well; but you said so too,” returned Miss Wren. “ Or 
at least you took on like the master, and didn’t contradict 
him.” 

“ One of his dodges,” said Mr. Fledgeby, with a cool and 
contemptuous shrug. “ He’s made of dodges. He said to 
me, ‘ Come up to the top of the house, sir, and I’ll show you 
a handsome girl. But I shall call you the master.’ So I went 
up to the top of the house and he showed me the handsome 
girl (very well worth looking at, she was), and I was called the 
master. I don’t know why. I dare say he don’t. He loves 
a dodge for its own sake; being,” added Mr. Fledgeby, after 


640 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


casting about for an expressive phrase, “ the dodgerest of all 
the dodgers.” 

“Oh, my head!” cried the dolls’ dressmaker, holding it 
with both her hands, as if it were cracking. “You can’t 
mean what you say.” 

“ I can, my little woman,” retorted Fledgeby, “ and I do, 
I assure you.” 

This repudiation was not only an act of deliberate policy 
on Fledgeby’s part, in case of his being surprised by any 
other caller, but was also a retort upon Miss Wren for her 
over-sharpness, and a pleasant instance of his humour as 
regarded the old Jew. “ He has got a bad name as an old 
Jew, and he is paid for the use of it, and Fll have my money’s 
worth out of him.” This was Fledgeby’s habitual reflection 
in the way of business, and it was sharpened just now by the 
old man’s presuming to have a secret from him: though of 
the secret itself, as annoying somebody else whom he disliked, 
he by no means disapproved. 

Miss Wren with a fallen countenance sat behind the door 
looking thoughtfully at the ground, and the long and patient 
silence had again set in for some time, when the expression 
of Mr. Fledgeby’s face betokened that through the upper 
portion of the door, which was of glass, he saw some one 
faltering on the brink of the counting-house. Presently there 
was a rustle and a tap, and then some more rustling and 
another tap. Fledgeby taking no notice, the door was at 
length softly opened, and the dried face of a mild little elderly 
gentleman looked in. 

“ Mr. Riah? ” said this visitor, very politely. 

“ I am waiting for him, sir,” returned Mr. Fledgeby. “ He 
went out and left me here. I expect him back every minute. 
Perhaps you had better take a chair.” 

The gentleman took a chair, and put his hand to his fore- 
head, as if he were in a melancholy frame of mind. Mr. 
Fledgeby eyed him aside, and seemed to relish his atti- 
tude. 

“A fine day, sir,” remarked Fledgeby. 

The little dried gentleman was so occupied with his own 
depressed reflections that he did not notice the remark until 
the sound of Mr. Fledgeby’s voice had died out of the count- 


GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM 641 

ing-house. Then he started and said: I beg your pardon, 
sir. I fear you spoke to me ? ” 

“ I said,” remarked Fledgeby, a little louder than before. 
“ it was a fine day.” 

“ I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. Yes.” 

Again the little dried gentleman put his hand to his fore- 
head, and again Mr. Fledgeby seemed to enjoy his doing 
it. When the gentleman changed his attitude with a sigh, 
Fledgeby spake with a grin. 

“ Mr. Twemlow, I think? ” 

The dried gentleman seemed much surprised. 

“ Had the pleasure of dining with you at Lammle’s,” said 
Fledgeby. “ Even have the honour of being a connection of 
yours. An unexpected sort of place this to meet in; but one 
never knows, when one gets into the City, what people one 
may knock up against. I hope you have your health, and 
are enjoying yourself.” 

There might have been a touch of impertinence in the last 
words; on the other hand, it might have been but the native 
grace of Mr. Fledgeby’s manner. Mr. Fledgeby sat on a 
stool with a foot on the rail of another stool, and his hat on. 
Mr. Twemlow had uncovered on looking in at the door, and 
remained so. 

Now the conscientious Twemlow, knowing what he had 
done to thwart the gracious Fledgeby, was particularly dis- 
concerted by this encounter. He was as ill at ease as a 
gentleman well could be. He felt himself bound to conduct 
himself stiffly towards Fledgeby, and he made him a distant 
bow. Fledgeby made his small eyes smaller in taking special 
note of his manner. The dolls’ dressmaker sat in her corner 
behind the door, with her eyes on the ground and her hands 
folded on her basket, holding her crutch-stick between them, 
and appearing to take no heed of anything. 

“ He’s a long time,” muttered Mr. Fledgeby, looking at his 
watch. “ What time may you make it, Mr. Twemlow? ” 

Mr. Twemlow made it ten minutes past twelve, sir. 

“ As near as a toucher,” assented Fledgeby. “ I hope, Mr. 
Twemlow, your business here may be of a more agreeable 
character than mine.” 

“ Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Twemlow. 


642 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Fledgeby again made his small eyes smaller, as he glanced 
with great complacency at Twemlow, who was timorously 
tapping the table with a folded letter. 

“ What I know of Mr. Riah,"’ said Fledgeby, with a very 
disparaging utterance of his name, “ leads me to believe that 
this is about the shop for disagreeable business. I have 
always found him the bitingest and tightest screw in London.” 

Mr. Twemlow" acknowledged the remark with a little 
distant bow. It evidently made him nervous. 

“ So much so,” pursued Fledgeby, “ that if it wasn’t to be 
true to a friend, nobody should catch me waiting here a single 
minute. But if you have friends in adversity, stand by them. 
That’s what I say and act up to.” 

The equitable Tw’emlow felt that this sentiment, irrespec- 
tive of the utterer, demanded his cordial assent. “You are 
very right, sir,” he rejoined with spirit. “You indicate the 
generous and manly course.” 

“ Glad to have your approbation,” returned Fledgeby. 
“ It’s a coincidence, Mr. Twemlowq ” here he descended from 
his perch, and sauntered towards him; “ that the friends I am 
standing by to-day are the friends at whose house I met you ! 
The Lammles. She’s a very taking and agreeable w^oman ? ” 

Conscience smote the gentle Tw^emlow pale. “ Yes,” he 
said. “ She is.” 

“ And when she appealed to me this morning, to come 
and try what I could do to pacify their creditor, this Mr. 
Riah — that I certainly have gained some little influence with 
in transacting business for another friend, but nothing like 
so much as she supposes — and when a woman like that spoke 
to me as her dearest Mr. Fledgeby, and shed tears — why 
what could I do, you know? ” 

Twemlow gasped “ Nothing but come.” 

“ Nothing but come. And so I came. But why,” said 
Fledgeby, putting his hands in his pockets and counterfeiting 
deep meditation, “ why Riah should have started up, when 
I told him that the Lammles entreated him to hold over a 
Bill of Sale he has on all their effects; and why he should 
have cut out, saying he would be back directly; and why he 
should have left me here alone so long; I cannot under- 
stand.” 


GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM 643 

The chivalrous Twemlow, Knight of the Simple Heart, was 
not in a condition to offer any suggestion. He was too peni- 
tent, too remorseful. For the first time in his life he had 
done an under-handed action, and he had done wrong. He 
had secretly interposed against this confiding young man, 
for no better real reason than because the young man’s ways 
were not his ways. 

But the confiding young man proceeded to heap coals of 
fire on his sensitive head. 

“ I beg your pardon, Mr. Twemlow; you see I am ac- 
quainted with the nature of the affairs that are transacted 
here. Is there anything I can do for you here? You have 
always been brought up as a gentleman, and never as a man 
of business another touch of possible impertinence in this 
place; “ and perhaps you are but a poor man of business. 
What else is to be expected ? ” 

“ I am even a poorer man of business than I am a man, 
sir,” returned Twemlow, “ and I could hardly express my 
deficiency in a stronger way. I really do not so much as 
clearly understand my position in the matter on which I am 
brought here. But there are reasons which make me very 
delicate of accepting your assistance. I am greatly, greatly, 
disinclined to profit by it. I don’t deserve it.” 

Good childish creature ! Condemned to a passage through 
the world by such narrow little dimly-lighted ways, and 
picking up so few specks or spots on the road! 

“ Perhaps,” said Fledgeby, “ you may be a little proud 
of entering on the topic — having been brought up as a 
gentleman.” 

“ It’s not that, sir/’ returned Twemlow, ‘‘ it’s not 
that. I hope I distinguish between true pride and false 
pride.” 

I have no pride at all, myself,” said Fledgeby, “ and 
perhaps I don’t cut things so fine as to know one from t’other. 
But I know this is a place where even a man of business 
needs his wits about him; and if mine can be of any use to 
you here, you’re welcome to them.” 

You are very good,” said Twemlow, faltering. “ But I 
am most unwilling ” 

“ I don’t, you know,” proceeded Fledgeby, with an ill- 


644 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


favoured glance, “ entertain the vanity of supposing that my 
wits could be of any use to you in society, but they might 
be here. You cultivate society and society cultivates you, 
but Mr. Riah’s not society. In society, Mr. Riah is kept 
dark; eh, Mr. Twemlow?” 

Twemlow, much disturbed, and with his hand fluttering 
about his forehead, replied: “Quite true.” 

The confiding young man besought him to state his case. 
The innocent Twemlow expecting Fledgeby to be astounded 
by what he should unfold, and not for an instant conceiving 
the possibility of its happening every day, but treating of it 
as a terrible phenomenon occurring in the course of ages, 
related how that he had had a deceased friend, a married 
civil officer with a family, who had wanted money for change 
of place on change of post, and how he, Twemlow, had 
“ given him his name,*’ with the usual, but in the eyes of 
Twemtlow almost incredible result that he had been left to 
repay what he had never had. How, in the course of years, 
he had reduced the principal by trifling sums, “ having,” 
said Twemlow, “ always to observe great economy, being in 
the enjoyment of a fixed income limited in extent, and that 
depending on the munificence of a certain nobleman,” and 
had always pinched the full interest out of himself with 
punctual pinches. How he had come, in course of time, to 
look upon this one only debt of his life as a regular quarterly 
drawback, and no worse, when “ his name ” had some way 
fallen into the possession of Mr. Riah, who had sent him 
notice to redeem it by paying up in full, in one plump sum, 
or take tremendous consequences. This, with hazy remem- 
brances of how he had been carried to some office to “ confess 
judgment ” (as he recollected the phrase), and how he had 
been carried to another office where his life was assured for 
somebody not wholly unconnected with the sherry trade 
whom he remembered by the remarkable circumstance that 
he had a Stradivarius violin to dispose of, and also a Madonna, 
formed the sum and substance of Mr. Twemlow’s narrative. 
Through which stalked the shadow of the awful Snigsworth, 
eyed afar off by money-lenders as Security in the Mist, and 
menacing Twemlow with his baronial truncheon. 

To all Mr. Fledgeby listened with the modest gravity 


GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM 645 

becoming a confiding young man who knew it all beforehand, 
and, when it was finished, seriously shook his head. “ I 
don't like, Mr. Twemlow,” said Fledgeby, “ I don’t like 
Riah’s calling in the principal. If he’s determined to call it 
in, it must come.” 

“ But supposing, sir,” said Twemlow, downcast, “ that it 
can’t come ? ” 

“ Then,” retorted Fledgeby, you must go, you know.” 

“ Where ? ” asked Twemlow, faintly. 

“ To prison,” returned Fledgeby. Whereat Mr. Twemlow 
leaned his innocent head upon his hand, and moaned a little 
moan of distress and disgrace. 

“ However,” said Fledgeby, appearing to pluck up his 
spirits, “ we’ll hope it’s not so bad as that comes to. If 
you’ll allow me. I’ll mention to Mr. Riah, when he comes 
in, who you are, and I’ll tell him you’re my friend, and I’ll 
say my say for you, instead of your saying it for yourself; I 
may be able to do it in a more business-like way. You 
won’t consider it a liberty ? ” 

“ I thank you again and again, sir,” said Twemlow. “ I 
am strong, strongly disinclined to avail myself of your gener- 
osity, though my helplessness yields. For I cannot but 
feel that I — to put it in the mildest form of speech — that I 
have done nothing to deserve it.” 

“ Where can he be? ” muttered Fledgeby, referring to his 
watch again. “ What can he have gone out for? Did you 
ever see him, Mr. Twemlow?” 

‘‘ Never.” 

“ He is a thorough Jew to look at, but he is a more thorough 
Jew to deal with. He’s worse when he’s quiet. If he’s quiet, 
I shall take it as a very bad sign. Keep your eye upon him 
when he comes in, and, if he’s quiet, don’t be hopeful. Here 
he is! — He looks quiet.” 

With these words, which had the effect of causing the 
harmless Twemlow painful agitation, Mr. Fledgeby withdrew 
to his former post, and the old man entered the counting- 
house. 

Why, Mr. Riah,” said Fledgeby, I thought you were 
lost!” 

The old man, glancing at the stranger, stood stock-still. 


646 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


He perceived that his master was leading up to the orders 
he was to take, and he waited to understand them. 

“ I really thought,” repeated Fledgeby, slowly, “ that you 
were lost, Mr. Riah. Why, now I look at you — but no, you 
can’t have done it; no, you can’t have done it! ” 

Hat in hand, the old man lifted his head and looked 
distressfully at Fledgeby, as seeking to know what new moral 
burden he was to bear. 

“ You can’t have rushed out to get the start of everybody 
else, and put in that bill of sale at Lammle’s?” said Fledgeby 
“ Say you haven’t, Mr. Riah.” 

“ Sir, I have,” replied the old man in a low voice. 

“ Oh, my eye! ” cried Fledgeby. “ Tut, tut, tut! Dear, 
dear, dear! Well! I knew you were a hard customer, Mr. 
Riah, but I never thought you were as hard as that.” 

“ Sir,” said the old man, with great uneasiness, “ I do as 
I am directed. I am not the principal here. I am but the 
agent of a superior, and I have no choice, no power.” 

“ Don’t say so,” returned Fledgeby, secretly exultant as 
the old man stretched out his hands, with a shrinking action 
of defending himself against the sharp construction of the 
two observers. “ Don’t play the tune of the trade, Mr. Riah. 
You’ve a right to get in your debts, if you’re determined to do 
it, but don’t pretend what every one in your line regularly 
pretends. At least, don’t do it to me. Why should you, 
Mr. Riah? You know I know all about you.” 

The old man clasped the skirt of his long coat with his 
disengaged hand, and directed a wistful look at Fledgeby. 

“ And don’t,” said Fledgeby, “ don’t, I entreat you as a 
favour, Mr. Riah, be so devilish meek, for I know what’ll 
follow if you are. Look here, Mr. Riah. This gentleman is 
Mr. Twemlow.” 

The Jew turned to him and bowed. That poor lamb 
bowed in return ; polite, and terrified. 

“ I have made such a failure,” proceeded Fledgeby, “ in 
trying to do anything with you for my friend Lammle, that 
Fve hardly a hope of doing anything with you for my friend 
(and connection indeed) Mr. Twemlow. But I do think that 
if you would do a favour for anybody, you would for me, 
and I won’t fail for want of trying, and Fve passed my 


GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM 647 

promise to Mr. Twemlow besides. Now, Mr. Riah, here is 
Mr. Twemlow. Always good for his interest, always coming 
up to time, always paying his little way. Now why should 
you press Mr. Twemlow? You can’t have any spite against 
Mr. Twemlow! Why not be easy with Mr. Twemlow?” 

The old man looked into Fledgeby’s little eyes for any 
sign of leave to be easy with Mr. Twemlow; but there was 
no sign in them. 

“ Mr. Twemlow is no connection of yours, Mr. Riah,” said 
Fledgeby; “ you can’t want to be even with him for having 
through life gone in for a gentleman and hung on to his 
Family. If Mr. Twemlow has a contempt for business, what 
can it matter to you? ” 

“ But pardon me,” interposed the gentle victim, “ I have 
not. I should consider it presumption.” 

There, Mr. Riah!” said Fledgeby; “isn’t that hand- 
somely said? Come! Make terms with me for Mr. Twem- 
low.” 

The old man looked again for any sign of permission to 
spare the poor little gentleman. No. Mr. Fledgeby meant 
him to be racked. 

“ I am very sorry, Mr. Twemlow,” said Riah, “ I have my 
instructions. I am invested with no authority for diverging 
from them. The money must be paid.” 

“ In full and slap down, do you mean, Mr. Riah? ” asked 
Fledgeby, to make things quite explicit. 

“ In full, sir, and at once,” was Riah’s answer. 

Mr. Fledgeby shook his head deploringly at Twemlow, 
and mutely expressed in reference to the venerable figure 
standing before him with eyes upon the ground: “ What a 
monster of an Israelite this is!” 

“ Mr. Riah,” said Fledgeby. 

The old man lifted up his eyes once more to the little eyes 
in Mr. Fledgeby’s head, with some reviving hope that the 
sign might be coming yet. 

“ Mr. Riah, it’s of no use my holding back the fact. There’s 
a certain great party in the background in Mr. Twemlow’ s 
case, and you know it.” 

“ I know it,” the old man admitted. 

“ Now I’ll put it as a plain point of business, Mr. Riah 


648 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Are you fully determined (as a plain point of business) either 
to have that said great party’s security, or that said great 
party’s money?” 

“ Fully determined,” answered Riah, nr, he read his master’s 
face, and learnt the book. 

“ Not at all caring for, and indeed, as it seems to me, 
rather enjoying,” said Fledgeby, with peculiar unction, 
“ the precious kick-up and row that will come off between 
Mr. Twemlow and the said great party? ” 

This required no answer, and received none. Poor Mr. 
Twemlow, who had betrayed the keenest mental terrors since 
his noble kinsman loomed in the perspective, rose with a 
sigh to take his departure. “ I thank you very much, sir,” 
he said, offering Fledgeby his feverish hand. “You have 
done me an unmerited service. Thank you, thank you! ” 

“ Don’t mention it,” answered Fledgeby. “ It’s a failure 
so far, but I’ll stay behind, and take another touch at Mr. 
Riah.” 

“ Do not deceive yourself, Mr. Twemlow,” said the Jew, 
then addressing him directly for the first time. “ There is 
no hope for you. You must expect no leniency here. You 
must pay in full, and you cannot pay too promptly, or you 
will be put to heavy charges. Trust nothing to me, sir. 
Money, money, money.” When he had said these words in 
an emphatic manner, he acknowledged Mr. Twemlow’ s still 
polite motion of his head, and that amiable little worthy 
took his departure in the lowest spirits. 

Fascination Fledgeby was in such a merry vein when the 
counting-house was cleared of him, that he had nothing for 
it but to go to the window, and lean his arms on the frame 
of the blind, and have his silent laugh out, with his back to 
his subordinate. When he turned round again with a com- 
posed countenance, his subordinate still stood in the same 
place, and the dolls’ dressmaker sat behind the door with a 
look of horror. 

“Halloa!” cried Mr. Fledgeby, “you’re forgetting this 
young lady, Mr. Riah, and she has been waiting long enough 
too. Sell her her waste, please, and give her good measure 
if you can make up your mind to do the liberal thing for 
once.” 


GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM 649 

He looked on for a time, as the Jew filled her little basket 
with such scraps as she was used to buy; but, his merry 
vein coming on again, he was obliged to turn round to the 
window once more, and lean his arms on the blind. 

There, my Cinderella dear,” said the old man in a whisper, 
and with a worn-out look, “ the basket’s full now. Bless 
you! And get you gone! ” 

“ Don’t call me your Cinderella dear,” returned Miss Wren. 
“ Oh, you cruel godmother! ” 

She shook that emphatic little forefinger of hers in his 
face at parting, as earnestly and reproachfully as she had 
ever shaken it at her grim old child at home. 

You are not the godmother at all! ” said she. “You are 
the Wolf in the Forest, the wicked Wolf! And if ever my 
dear Lizzie is sold and betrayed, I shall know who sold and 
betrayed her! ” 


CHAPTER XIV 


MR. WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR. BOFFIN’S 
NOSE 

Having assisted at a few more expositions of the lives of 
Misers, Mr Venus became almost indispensable to the even- 
ings at the Bower, The circumstance of having another 
listener to the wonders unfolded by Wegg, or, as it were, 
another calculator to cast up the guineas found in teapots, 
chimneys, racks and mangers, and other such banks of de- 
posit, seemed greatly to heighten Mr. Boffin’s enjoyment; 
while Silas Wegg, for his part, though of a jealous tempera- 
ment which might under ordinary circumstances have 
resented the anatomist’s getting into favour, was so very 
anxious to keep his eye on that gentleman — lest, being too 
much left to himself, he should be tempted to play any 
tricks with the precious document in his keeping — that he 
never lost an opportunity of commending him to Mr. Boffin’s 
notice as a third party whose company was much to be 
desired. Another friendly demonstration towards him Mr. 
Wegg now regularly gratified. After each sitting was over, 
and the patron had departed, Mr. Wegg invariably saw 
Mr. Venus home. To be sure, he as invariably requested to 
be refreshed with a sight of the paper in which he was a 
joint proprietor; but he never failed to remark that it was 
the great pleasure he derived from Mr. Venus’s improving 
society which had insensibly lured him round to Clerkenwell 
again, and that, finding himself once more attracted to the 
spot by the social powers of Mr. V., he would beg leave to 
go through that little incidental procedure, as a matter of 
form. ** For well I know, sir,” Mr. Wegg would add, “ that 
a man of your delicate mind would wish to be checked off 
whenever the opportunity arises, and it is not for me to 
baulk your feelings.” 


A. GRINDSTONE FOR MR. BOFFIN 'S NOSE 651 


A certain rustiness in Mr, Venus, which never became so 
lubricated by the oil of Mr. Wegg but that he turned under 
the screw in a creaking and stiff manner, was very noticeable 
at about this period. While assisting at the literary evenings, 
he even went so far, on two or three occasions, as to correct 
Mr. Wegg when he grossly mispronounced a word, or made 
nonsense of a passage; insomuch that Mr. Wegg took to 
surveying his course in the day, and to making arrangements 
for getting round rocks at night instead of running straight 
upon them. Of the slightest anatomical reference he became 
particularly shy, and, if he saw a bone ahead, would go 
any distance out of his way rather than mention it by 
name. 

The adverse destinies ordained that one evening Mr. Wegg’s 
labouring bark became beset by polysyllables, and embar- 
rassed among a perfect archipelago of hard words. It being 
necessary to take soundings every minute, and to feel the 
way with the greatest caution, Mr. Wegg’s attention was 
fully employed. Advantage was taken of this dilemma by 
Mr. Venus, to pass a scrap of paper into Mr. Boffin’s hand, 
and lay his finger on his own lip. 

When Mr. Boffin got home at night he found that the 
paper contained Mr. Venus’s card and these words: “ Should 
be glad to be honoured with a call respecting business of 
your own, about dusk on an early evening.” 

The very next evening saw Mr. Boffin peeping in at 
the preserved frogs in Mr. Venus’s shop-window, and saw 
Mr. Venus espying Mr. Boffin with the readiness of one on 
the alert, and beckoning that gentleman into his interior. 
Responding, Mr. Boffin was invited to seat himself on the 
box of human miscellanies before the fire, and did so, looking 
round the place with admiring eyes. The fire being low 
and fitful, and the dusk gloomy, the whole stock seemed to 
be winking and blinking with both eyes, as Mr. Venus did. 
The French gentleman, though he had no eyes, was not at 
all behind-hand, but appeared, as the flame rose and fell, 
to open and shut his no eyes, with the regularity of the glass- 
eyed dogs and ducks and birds. The big-headed babies 
were equally obliging in lending their grotesque aid to the 
general effect. 


652 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“You see, Mr. Venus, I’ve lost no time,” said Mr. Boffin. 
“ Here I am.” 

“ Here you are, sir,” assented Mr. Venus. 

“ I don’t like secrecy,” pursued Mr. Boffin — “ at least, not 
in a general way I don’t — but I dare say you’ll show me good 
reason for being secret so far.” 

“ I think I shall, sir,” returned Venus. 

“ Good,” said Mr. Boffin. “You don’t expect Wegg, I take 
it for granted? ” 

“ No, sir. I expect no one but the present company.” 

Mr. Boffin glanced about him, as accepting under that 
inclusive denomination the French gentleman and the circle 
in which he didn’t move, and repeated, “ The present 
company.” 

“ Sir,” said Mr. Venus, “ before entering upon business, I 
shall have to ask you for your word and honour that we are 
in confidence.” 

“ Let’s wait a bit and understand what the expression 
means,” answered Mr. Boffin. “ In confidence for how long ? 
In confidence for ever and a day ? ” 

“ I take the hint, sir,” said Venus; “ you think you might 
consider the business, when you came to know it, to be of a 
nature incompatible with confidence on your part? ” 

“ I might,” said Mr. Boffin, with a cautious look. 

“ True, sir. Well, sir,” observed Venus, after clutching at 
his dusty hair, to brighten his ideas, “ let us put it another 
way. I open the business with you, relying upon your 
honour not to do anything in it, and not to mention me in 
it, without my knowledge.” 

“ That sounds fair,” said Mr. Boffin. “ I agree to that.” 

“ I have your word and honour, sir? ” 

“ My good fellow,” retorted Mr. Boffin, you have my 
word; and how you can have that, without my honour too, 
I don’t know. I’ve sorted a lot of dust in my time, but I 
never knew the two things go into separate heaps.” 

This remark seemed rather to abash Mr. Venus. He hesi- 
tated, and said, “Very true, sir;” and again, “Very true, 
sir,” before resuming the thread of his discourse. 

“ Mr. Boffin, if I confess to you that I fell into a proposal 
of which you were the subject, and of which you oughtn’t 


A GRINDSTONE FOR MR. BOFFIN 's NOSE 653 

to have been the subject, you will allow me to mention, arid 
will please take into favourable consideration, that I was in 
a crushed state of mind at the time.” 

The Golden Dustman, Avith his hands folded on the top of 
his stout stick, with his chin resting on them, and with 
something leering and whimsical in his eyes, gave a nod and 
said, “ Quite so, Venus.” 

“ That proposal, sir, was a conspiring breach of your con- 
fidence, to such an extent, that I ought at once to have 
made it known to you. But I didn’t, Mr. Boffin, and I fell 
into it.” 

Without moving eye or finger, Mr. Boffin gave another 
nod, and placidly repeated, Quite so, Venus.” 

“ Not that I was ever hearty in it, sir,” the penitent anato- 
mist went on, or that I ever viewed myself with anything 
but reproach for having turned out of the paths of science 

into the paths of ” he w^as going to say villainy,” but, 

unwilling to press too hard upon himself, substituted Avith 
great emphasis — “ Weggery.” 

Placid and whimsical of look as ever, Mr. Boffin answered : 
“ Quite so, Venus.” 

“ And now, sir,” said Venus, “ having prepared your mind 
in the rough, I will articulate the details.” With Avhich 
brief professional exordium he entered on the history of the 
friendly move, and truly recounted it. One might haA^e 
thought that it would have extracted some show of surprise 
or anger, or other emotion, from Mr. Boffin, but it ex- 
tracted nothing beyond his former comment: “ Quite so, 
Venus.” 

I have astonished you, sir, I belieA^e? ” said Mr. Venus, 
pausing dubiously. 

Mr. Boffin simply answered as aforesaid: “Quite so, 
Venus.” 

By this time the astonishment was all on the other side. 
It did not, however, so continue. For when Venus passed to 
Wegg’s discovery, and from that to their having both seen 
Mr. Boffin dig up the Dutch bottle, that gentleman changed 
colour, changed his attitude, became extremely restless, and 
ended (when Venus ended) by being in a state of manifest 
anxiety, trepidation, and confusion. 


654 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“Now, sir,” said Venus, finishing off; “you best know 
what was in that Dutch bottle, and why you dug it up and 
took it away. I don’t pretend to know anything more about 
it than I saw. All I know is this : I am proud of my calling 
after all (though it has been attended by one dreadful draw- 
back which has told upon my heart, and almost equally 
upon my skeleton), and I mean to live by my calling. Putting 
the same meaning into other words, I do not mean to turn 
a single dishonest penny by this affair. As the best amends 
I can make you for having ever gone into it, I make known 
to you, as a warning, what W egg has found out. My opinion 
is, that Wegg is not to be silenced at a modest price, and I 
build that opinion on his beginning to dispose of your prop- 
erty the moment he knew his power. Whether it’s worth 
your while to silence him at any price, you will decide for 
yourself, and take your measures accordingly. As far as 
I am concerned, I have no price. If I am ever called upon 
for the truth, I tell it, but I want to do no more than I have 
now done and ended.” 

“ Thank’ ee, Venus!” said Mr. Boffin, with a hearty grip 
of his hand; “ thank’ ee, Venus, thank’ ee, Venus! ” And then 
walked up and down the little shop in great agitation. “But 
look here, Venus,” he by and by resumed, nervously 
sitting down again; “ if I have to buy Wegg up, I shan’t buy 
him any cheaper for your being out of it. Instead of his 
having half the money — it was to have been half, I suppose ? 
Share and share alike ? ” 

“ It was to have been half, sir,” answered Venus. 

“ Instead of that, he’ll now have all. I shall pay the 
same, if not more. For you tell me he’s an unconscionable 
dog, a ravenous rascal.” 

“ He is,” said Venus. 

“ Don’t you think, Venus,” insinuated Mr. Boffin, after 
looking at the fire for awhile — “ don’t you feel as if — you 
might like to pretend to be in it till Wegg was brought up, 
and then ease your mind by handing over to me what you 
had made believe to pocket? ” 

“ No, I don’t, sir,” returned Venus, very positively. 

“ Not to make amends? ” insinuated Mr. Boffin. 

“ No, sir. It seems to me, after maturely thinking it over, 


A GRINDSTONE FOR MR. BOFFIN NOSE 655 

that the best amends for having got out of the square is to 
get back into the square.” 

“Humph!” mused Mr. Boffin. “When you say the 
square, you mean ” 

“ I mean,” said Venus, stoutly and shortly, “ the right.” 

“ It appears to me,” said Mr. Boffin, grumbling over the 
fire in an injured manner, “ that the right is with me, if it’s 
anywhere. I have much more right to the old man’s money 
than the Crown can ever have. What was the Crown to him 
except the King’s Taxes ? Whereas, me and my wife, we was 
all in all to him.” 

Mr Venus, wdth his head upon his hands, rendered melan- 
choly by the contemplation of Mr. Boffin’s avarice, only 
murmured to steep himself in the luxury of that frame of 
mind: “ She did not wish so to regard herself, nor yet to be 
so regarded.” 

“ And how am I to live,” asked Mr. Boffin, piteously, “ if 
Pm to be going buying fellows up out of the little that I’ve 
got ? And how am I to set about it ? When am I to get my 
money ready? When am I to make a bid? You haven’t 
told me when he tlireatens to drop down upon me.” 

Venus explained under what conditions, and with 'what 
views, the dropping down upon Mr. Boffin was held over 
until the Mounds should be cleared away. Mr. Boffin 
listened attentively. “ I suppose,” said he, with a gleam of 
hope, “ there’s no doubt about the genuineness and date of 
this confounded will ? ” . 

“ None whatever,” said Mr. Venus. 

“Where might it be deposited at present?” asked Mr. 
Boffin, in a wheedling tone. 

“ It’s in my possession, sir.” 

“ Is it? ” he cried, with great eagerness. “ Now, for any 
liberal sum of money that could be agreed upon, Venus, 
would you put it in the fire? ” 

“ No, sir, I wouldn’t,” interrupted Mr. Venus. 

“ Nor pass it over to me? ” 

“ That would be the same thing. No, sir,” said Mr. 
Venus. 

The Golden Dustman seemed about to pursue these 
questions, when a stumping noise was heard outside, coming 


656 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


towards the door. “Hush! here’s Weggl” said Venus 
“ Get behind the young alligator in the corner, Mr. Boffin, 
and judge him for yourself. I won’t light a candle till he’s 
gone; there’ll only be the glow of the fire; Wegg’s well ac- 
quainted with the alligator, and he won’t take particular 
notice of him. Draw your legs in, Mr. Boffin; at present I 
see a pair of shoes at the end of his tail. Get your head 
well behind his smile, Mr. Boffin, and you’ll lie comfortable 
there; you’ll find plenty of room behind his smile. He’s a 
little dusty, but he’s very like you in tone. Are you right, 
sir?” 

Mr. Boffin had but whispered an affirmative response, when 
Wegg came stumping in. “ Partner,” said that gentle- 
man in a sprightly manner, “ how’s yourself? ” 

“ Tolerable,” returned Mr. Venus. “ Not much to boast 
of.” 

“In-deed!” said Wegg: “sorry, partner, that you’re not 
picking up faster, but your soul’s too large for your body, sir; 
that’s where it is. And how’s our stock in trade, partner? 
Safe bind, safe find, partner? Is that about it? ” 

“ Do you wish to see it? ” asked Venus. 

“ If you please, partner,” said Wegg, rubbing his hands. 
“ I wish to see it jintly with yourself. Or, in similar words 
to some that was set to music some time back: 

* I wish you to see it with your eyes, 

And I will pledge with mine.’ ” 

Turning his back and turning a key, Mr. Venus produced 
the document, holding on by his usual comer. Mr. Wegg, 
holding on by the opposite comer, sat down on the seat so 
lately vacated by Mr. Boffin, and looked it over. “ All 
right, sir,” he slowly and unwillingly admitted, in his reluct- 
ance to loose his hold, “ all right!” And greedily watched 
his partner as he turned his back again, and turned his key 
again. 

“ There’s nothing new, I suppose? ” said Venus, resuming 
his low chair behind the counter. 

“Yes, there is, sir,” replied Wegg; “ there was something 
new this morning. That foxy old grasper and griper ” 


A GRINDSTONE FOR MR. BOFFIN ’s NOSE 657 

Mr. Boffin ? ” inquired Venus, with a glance towards the 
alligator’s yard or two of smile. 

“Mister be blowed!” cried Wegg, yielding to his hon- 
est indignation. “ Boffin. Dusty Boffin. That foxy old 
grunter and grinder, sir, turns into the yard this morning, to 
meddle with our property, a menial tool of his own, a young 
man by the name of Sloppy. Ecod, when I say to him, 

‘ What do you want here, young man ? This is a private 
yard,’ he pulls out a paper from Boffin’s other blackguard, 
the one I was passed over for. ‘ This is to authorise Sloppy 
to overlook the carting and to watch the work.’ That’s 
pretty strong, I think, Mr. Venus ? ” 

“ Remember he doesn’t know yet of our claim on the 
property,” suggested Venus. 

“ Then he must have a hint of it,” said Wegg, “ and a 
strong one that’ll jog his terrors a bit. Give him an inch, 
and he’ll take an ell. Let him alone this time, and what’ll 
he do with our property next? I tell you what, Mr. Venus; 
it comes to this; I must be overbearing with Boffin, or I 
shall fly into several pieces. I can’t contain myself when I 
look at him. Every time I see him putting his hand in his 
pocket, I see him putting it into my pocket. Every time I 
hear him jingling his money, I hear him taking liberties with 
my money. Flesh and blood can’t bear it. No,” said Mr. 
Wegg, greatly exasperated, “ and I’ll go further. A wooden 
leg can’t bear it! ” 

“ But, Mr. Wegg,” urged Venus, “ it w^as your owm idea 
that he should not be exploded upon, till the Mounds were 
carted away.” 

“ But it was likewise my idea, Mr. Venus,” retorted Wegg, 
“ that if he came sneaking and sniffing about the property, 
he should be threatened, given to understand that he has no 
right to it, and be made our slave. Wasn’t that my idea, 
Mr. Venus?” 

“ It certainly was, Mr. Wegg.” 

“ It certainly was, as you say, partner,” assented Wegg, 
put into a better humour by the ready admission. “ Very 
well. I consider his planting one of his menial tools in the 
yard, an act of sneaking and sniffing. And his nose shall 
be put to the grindstone for it.” 


658 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


‘‘ It was not your fault, Mr. Wegg, I must admit,” said 
Venus, “ that he got off with the Dutch bottle that night.” 

“ As you handsomely say again, partner! No, it was not 
my fault. I’d have had that bottle out of him. Was it to 
be borne that he should come, like a thief in the dark, dig- 
ging among stuff that was far more ours than his (seeing 
that we could deprive him of every grain of it, if he didn’t 
buy us at our own figure), and carrying off treasure from its 
bowels ? No, it was not 'to be borne. And for that, too, his 
nose shall be put to the grindstone.” 

“ How do you propose to do it, Mr. Wegg ? ” 

“ To put his nose to the grindstone? I propose,” returned 
that estimable man, “ to insult him openly. And if, looking 
into this eye of mine, he dares to offer a word in answer, to 
retort upon him before he can take his breath, ‘ Add another 
word to that, you dusty old dog, and you’re a beggar.’ ” 

“ Suppose he says nothing, Mr. Wegg ? ” 

“ Then,” replied Wegg, “ we shall have come to an under- 
standing with very little trouble, and I’ll break him and 
drive him, Mr. Venus. I’ll put him in harness, and I’ll bear 
him up tight, and I’ll break him and drive him. The harder 
the old Dust is driven, sir, the higher he’ll pay. And I mean 
to be paid high, Mr. Venus, I promise you.” 

“ You speak quite revengefully, Mr. Wegg.” 

“ Revengefully, sir? Is it for him that I have declined and 
failed, night after night? Is it for his pleasure that I’ve 
waited at home of an evening, like a set of skittles, to be set 
up and knocked over, set up and knocked over, by whatever 
balls — or books — he chose to bring against me ? Why, I’m 
a hundred times the man he is, sir; five hundred times! ” 
Perhaps it was with the malicious intent of urging him 
on to his worst that Mr. Venus looked as if he doubted that. 

‘‘What? Was it outside the house at present ockypied, 
to its disgrace, by that minion of fortune and worm of the 
hour,” said Wegg, falling back upon his strongest terms of 
reprobation, and slapping the counter, “ that I, Silas Wegg, 
five hundred times the man he ever was, sat in all weathers, 
waiting for a errand or a customer? Was it outside that 
very house as I first set eyes upon him, rolling in the lap of 
luxury, when I was a-selling halfpenny ballads there for a 













A GRINDSTONE FOR MR. BOFFIN^S NOSE 659 

living? And am I to grovel in the dust for him to walk 
over? No!” 

There was a grin upon the ghastly countenance of the 
French gentleman under the influence of the flrelight, as if 
he were computing how many thousand slanderers and traitors 
array themselves against the fortunate, on premises exactly 
answering to those of Mr. Wegg. One might have fancied 
that the big-headed babies were toppling over with their 
hydrocephalic attempts to reckon up the children of men who 
transform their benefactors into their injurers by the same 
process. The yard or two of smile on the part of the alli- 
gator might have been invested with the meaning, “AH 
about this was quite familiar knowledge down in the depths 
of the slime, ages ago.” 

“ But,” said Wegg, possibly with some slight perception to 
the foregoing effect, “ your speaking countenance remarks, 
Mr. Venus, that Fm duller and savager than usual. Perhaps 
I have allowed myself to brood too much. Begone, dull 
Care! ’Tis gone, sir. I’ve looked in upon you, and empire 
resumes her sway. For, as the song says — subject to your 
correction, sir — 

* When the heart of a man is depressed with cares. 

The mist is dispelled if Venus appears. 

Like the notes of a fiddle, you sweetly, sir, sweetly, 

Raises our spirits and charms our ears.’ 

Good night, sir.” 

“ I shall have a word or two to say to you, Mr. Wegg, 
before long,” remarked Venus, “ respecting my share in the 
project we’ve been speaking of.” 

“ My time, sir,” returned Wegg, “ is yours. In the mean- 
while let it be fully understood that I shall not neglect bring- 
ing the grindstone to bear, nor yet bringing Dusty Boffin’s 
nose to it. His nose once brought to it, shall be held to it by 
these hands, Mr. Venus, till the sparks flies out in showers.” 

With this agreeable promise Wegg stumped out, and shut 
the shop-door after him. “ Wait till I light a candle, Mr. 
Boffin,” said Venus, “ and you’ll come out more comfortable.” 
So, he lighting a candle and holding it up at arm’s length, 
Mr. Boffin disengaged himself from behind the alligator’s 


660 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


smile, with an expression of countenance so very downcast 
that it not only appeared as if the alligator had the whole of 
the joke to himself, but further as if it had been conceived 
and executed at Mr. Boffin’s expense. 

“ That’s a treacherous fellow,” said Mr. Boffin, dusting his 
arms and legs as he came forth, the alligator having been 
but musty company. That’s a dreadful fellow.” 

“ The alligator, sir ? ” said Venus. 

“ No, Venus, no. The Serpent.” 

“ You’ll have the goodness to notice, Mr. Boffin,” remarked 
Venus, “ that I said nothing to him about my going out of the 
affair altogether, because I didn’t wish to take you anyways 
by surprise. But I can’t be too soon out of it for my satis- 
faction, Mr. Boffin, and I now put it to you when it will 
suit your views for me to retire ? ” 

“ Thank’ee, Venus, thank’ee, Venus; but I don’t know 
what to say,” returned Mr. Boffin. “ I don’t know what to 
do. He’ll drop down on me any way. He seems fully 
determined to drop down; don’t he? ” 

Mr. Venus opined that such was clearly his intention. 

“You might be a sort of protection for me, if you remained 
in it,” said Mr. Boffin; “ you might stand betwixt him and 
me, and take the edge off him. Don’t you feel as if you 
could make a show of remaining in it, Venus, till I had time 
to turn myself round ? ” 

Venus naturally inquired how long Mr. Boffin thought it 
might take him to turn himself round ? 

“ I am sure I don’t know,” was the answer, given quite at a 
loss. “ Everything is so at sixes and sevens. If I had never 
come into the property, I shouldn’t have minded. But being 
in it, it would be very trying to be turned out; now, don’t 
you acknowledge that it would, Venus ? ” 

Mr. Venus preferred, he said, to leave Mr. Boffin to arrive 
at his own conclusions on that delicate question. 

“ I am sure I don’t know what to do,” said Mr. Boffin. 
“ If I ask advice of any one else, it’s only letting in another 
person to be bought out, and then I shall be ruined that 
way, and might as well have given up the property and gone 
slap to the workhouse. If I was to take advice of my young 
man, Rokesmith, I should have to buy him out. Sooner or 


A GRINDSTONE FOR MR. BOFFIN 's NOSE 661 

later, of course, lie’d drop down upon me, like Wegg. I was 
brought into the world to be dropped down upon, it appears 
to me.” 

Mr. Venus listened to these lamentations in silence, while 
Mr. Boffin jogged to and fro, holding his pockets as if he 
had a pain in them. 

After all, you haven’t said what you mean to do yourself, 
Venus. When you do go out of it, how do you mean 
to go?” 

Venus replied that as Wegg had found the document and 
handed it to him, it was his intention to hand it back to 
Wegg, with the declaration that he himself would have 
nothing to say to it, or do with it, and that Wegg must act 
as he chose, and take the consequences. 

“ And then he drops down with his whole weight upon 
me!” cried Mr. Boffin, ruefully. “I’d sooner be dropped 
upon by you than by him, or even by you jintly, than by 
him alone 1 ” 

Mr. Venus could only repeat that it was his fixed inten- 
tion to betake himself to the paths of science, and to walk 
in the same all the days of his life; not dropping down 
upon his fellow-creatures until they were deceased, and 
then only to articulate them to the best of his humble 
ability. 

“ How long could you be persuaded to keep up the appear- 
ance of remaining in it? ” asked Mr. Boffin, retiring on his 
other idea. “ Could you be got to do so till the Mounds are 

O ” 

gone r 

No. That would protract the mental uneasiness of Mr. 
Venus too long, he said. 

“ Not if I was to show you reason now ? ” demanded 
Mr. Boffin; “ not if I was to show you good and sufficient 
reason ? ” 

If by good and sufficient reason Mr. Boffin meant honest 
and unimpeachable reason, that might weigh with Mr. Venus 
against his personal wishes and convenience. But he must 
add that he saw no opening to the possibility of such reason 
being shown him. 

“ Come and see me, Venus,” said Mr. Boffin, “ at my 
house.” 


662 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“Is the reason there, sir?'^ asked Mr. Venus, with an 
incredulous smile and blink. 

It may be, or may not be,” said Mr. Boffin, just as you 
view it. But in the meantime don’t go out of the matter. 
Look here. Do this. Give me your word that you won’t 
take any steps with Wegg, without my knowledge, just as 
I have given you my word that I won’t without yours.” 

“ Done, Mr. Boffin! ” said Venus, after a brief considera- 
tion. 

“ Thank’ee, Venus, thank’ee, Venus! Done! ” 

“ When shall I come to see you, Mr. Boffin ? ” 

“ When you like. The sooner the better. I must be 
going now. Good night, Venus.” 

“ Good night, sir.” 

“ And good night to the rest of the present company,” said 
Mr. Boffin, glancing round the shop. “ They make a queer 
show, Venus, and I should like to be better acquainted with 
them some day. Good night, Venus, good night! Thank’ee, 
Venus, thank’ee, Venus! ” With that he jogged out into the 
street, and jogged upon his homeward way. 

“ Now, I wonder,” he meditated as he went along, nursing 
his stick, “ whether it can be, that Venus is setting himself 
to get the better of Wegg? Whether it can be, that he 
means, when I have bought Wegg out, to have me all to 
himself and to pick me clean to the bones ? ” 

It was a cunning and suspicious idea, quite in the way of 
his school of Misers, and he looked very cunning and sus- 
picious as he went jogging through the streets. More than 
once or twice, more than twice or thrice, say half-a-dozen 
times, he took his stick from the arm on which he nursed it, 
and hit a straight sharp rap at the air with its head. Pos- 
sibly the wooden countenance of Mr. Silas Wegg was incor- 
poreally before him at those moments, for he hit with intense 
satisfaction. 

He was within a few streets of his own house, when a little 
private carriage, coming in the contrary direction, passed 
him, turned round, and passed him again. It was a little 
carriage of eccentric movement, for again he heard it stop 
behind him and turn round, and again he saw it pass him. 
Then it stopped, and then went on, out of sight. But not 


A GRINDSTONE FOR MR. BOFFIN’s NOSE 663 

far out of sight, for, when he came to the corner of his own 
street, there it stood again. 

There was a lady’s face at the window as he came up with 
this carriage, and he was passing it when the lady softly 
called to him by his name. 

“ I beg your pardon, Ma’am? ” said Mr. Boffin, coming to 
a stop. 

It is Mrs. Lammle,” said the lady. 

Mr. Boffin went up to the window and hoped Mrs. Lammle 
was well. 

“ Not very well, dear Mr. Boffin; I have fluttered myself 
by being — perhaps foolishly — uneasy and anxious. I have 
been waiting for you some time. Can I speak to you ? ” 

Mr. Boffin proposed that Mrs. Lammle should drive on 
to his house, a few hundred yards further. 

I would rather not, Mr. Boffin, unless you particularly 
wish it. I feel the difficulty and delicacy of the matter so 
much that I would rather avoid speaking to you at your 
own home. You must think this very strange? ” 

Mr. Boffin said no, but meant yes. 

“ It is because I am so grateful for the good opinion of all 
my friends, and am so touched by it, that I cannot bear to 
run the risk of forfeiting it in any case, even in the cause of 
duty. I have asked my husband (my dear Alfred, Mr. Boffin) 
whether it is the cause of duty, and he has most emphatically 
said Yes. I wish I had asked him sooner. It would have 
spared me much distress.” 

(“ Can this be more dropping down upon me!” thought 
Mr. Boffin, quite bewildered.) 

It was Alfred who sent me to you, Mr. Boffin. Alfred 
said, ‘ Don’t come back, Sophronia, until you have seen Mr. 
Boffin, and told him all. Whatever he may think of it, he 
ought certainly to know it.’ Would you mind coming into 
the carriage ? ” 

Mr. Boffin answered, Not at all,” and took his seat at 
Mrs. Lammle’s side. 

“ Drive slowly anywhere,” Mrs. Lammle called to her 
coachman, “ and don’t let the carriage rattle.” 

It must be more dropping down, I think,” said Mr. Boffin 
to himself. What next? ” 


CHAPTER XV 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST 

The breakfast table at Mr. Boffin’s was usually a very 
pleasant one, and w^as always presided over by Bella. As 
though he began each new day in his healthy natural char- 
acter, and some waking hours were necessary to his relapse 
into the corrupting influences of his wealth, the face and the 
demeanour of the Golden Dustman were generally unclouded 
at that meal. It would have been easy to believe then, that 
there was no change in him. It was as the day went on 
that the clouds gathered, and the brightness of the morning 
became obscured. One might have said that the shadows 
of avarice and distrust lengthened as his own shadow length- 
ened, and that the night closed around him gradually. 

But one morning long afterwards to be remembered, it 
was black midnight with the Golden Dustman when he first 
appeared. His altered character had never been so grossly 
marked. His bearing towards his Secretary was so charged 
with insolent distrust and arrogance, that the latter rose and 
left the table before breakfast was half done. The look he 
directed at the Secretary’s retiring figure was so cunningly 
malignant, that Bella would have sat astounded and in- 
dignant, even though he had not gone the length of secretly 
threatening Rokesmith with his clenched fist as he closed 
the door. This unlucky morning, of all mornings in the year, 
was the morning next after Mr. Boffin’s interview with 
Mrs. Lammle in her little carriage. 

Bella looked to Mrs. Boffin’s face for comment on, or 
explanation of, this stormy humour in her husband, but 
none w^as there. An anxious and a distressed observation 
of her own face was all she could read in it. When they 
were left alone together — which was not until noon, for Mr. 
Boffin sat long in his easy-chair, by turns jogging up and down 





# 


. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST 665 

the breakfast-room, clenching his fist and muttering — 
Bella, in consternation, asked her what had happened, what 
was wrong? “ I am forbidden to speak to you about it, 
Bella dear; I mustn’t tell you,” was all the answer she could 
get. And still, whenever, in her wonder and dismay, she 
raised her eyes to Mrs. Boffin’s face, she saw in it the same 
anxious and distressed observation of her own’. 

Oppressed by her sense that trouble was impending, and 
lost in speculations why Mrs. Boffin should look at her as if 
she had any part in it, Bella found the day long and dreary. 
It was far on in the afternoon when, she being in her own 
room, a servant brbught her a message from Mr. Boffin 
begging her to come to his. 

Mrs. Boffin was there, seated on a sofa, and Mr. Boffin 
was jogging up and down. On seeing Bella he stopped, 
beckoned her to him, and drew her arm through his. Don’t 
be alarmed, my dear,” he said, gently; “ I am not angry 
with you. Why, you actually tremble! Don’t be alarmed, 
Bella my dear. I’ll see you righted.” 

“ See me righted ? ” thought Bella. And then repeated 
aloud in a tone of astonishment : “ See me righted, sir ? ” 

“Ay, ay!” said Mr. Boffin. “See you righted. Send 
Mr. Rokesmith here, you sir.” 

Bella would have been lost in perplexity if there had been 
pause enough; but the servant found Mr. Rokesmith near at 
hand, and he almost immediately presented himself. 

“ Shut the door, sir! ” said Mr. Boffin. “ I have got some- 
thing to say to you which I fancy you’ll not be pleased to 
hear.” 

“ I am sorry to reply, Mr. Boffin,” returned the Secretary, 
as, having closed the door, he turned and faced him, “ that 
I think that very likely.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” blustered Mr. Boffin. 

“ I mean that it has become no novelty to me to hear from 
your lips what I would rather not hear.” 

“Oh! Perhaps we shall change that,” said Mr. Boffin, 
with a threatening roll of his head. 

“ I hope so,” returned the Secretary. He was quiet and 
respectful; but stood, as Bella thought (and was glad to 
think), on his manhood too. 


666 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Now, sir,” said Mr. Boffin, ‘‘ look at this young lady on 
my arm.” 

Bella involuntarily raising her eyes, when this sudden 
reference was made to herself, met those of Mr. Rokesmith. 
He was pale and seemed agitated. Then her eyes passed on 
to Mrs. Boffin’s, and she met the look again. In a flash it 
enlightened her, and she began to understand what she had 
done. 

“ I say to you, sir,” Mr. Boffin repeated, “ look at this 
young lady on my arm.” 

“ I do so,” returned the Secretary. 

As his glance rested again on Bella for a moment, she 
thought there was reproach in it. But it is possible that the 
reproach was within herself. 

“ How dare you, sir,” said Mr. Boffin, “ tamper, unknown 
to me, with this young lady? How dare you come out of 
your station, and your place in my house, to pester this 
young lady with your impudent addresses ? ” 

“ I must decline to answer questions,” said the Secretary, 
** that are so offensively asked.” 

You decline to answer?” retorted Mr. Boffin. “You 
decline to answer, do you? Then I’ll tell you what it is, 
Rokesmith; I’ll answer for you. There are two sides in this 
matter, and I’ll take ’em separately. The first side is, sheer 
Insolence. That’s the first side.” 

The Secretary smiled with some bitterness, as though he 
would have said, “ So I see and hear.” 

“ It was sheer Insolence in you, I tell you,” said Mr. Boffin, 
“even to think of this young lady. This young lady was 
far above you. This young lady was no match for you. This 
young lady was lying in wait (as she was qualified to do) 
for money, and you had no money.” 

Bella hung her head and seemed to shrink a little from 
Mr. Boffin’s protecting arm. 

“ What are you, I should like to know,” pursued Mr. 
Boffin, “ that you were to have the audacity to follow up 
this young lady? This young lady was looking about the 
market for a good bid; she wasn’t in it to be snapped up by 
fellows that had no money to lay out; nothing to buy with.” 

“Oh, Mr. Boffin! Mrs. Boffin, pray say something for 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST 667 

mel ’ murmured Bella, disengaging her arm, and covering 
her face with her hands. 

“Old lady,” said Mr Boffin, anticipating his wife, “you 
hold your tongue. Bella, my dear, don’t you let yourself be 
put out. I’ll right you.” 

“But you don’t, you don’t right me!” exclaimed Bella, 
with great emphasis. “ You wrong me, wrong me! ” 

“ Don’t you be put out, my dear,” complacently retorted 
Mr. Boffin. “ I’ll bring this young man to book. Now, you 
Rokesmith! You can’t decline to hear, you know, as well as 
to answer. You hear me tell you that the first side of your 
conduct was Insolence — Insolence and Presumption. An- 
swer me one thing, if you can. Didn’t this young lady tell 
you so herself? ” 

“ Did I, Mr. Rokesmith? ” asked Bella with her face still 
covered. “ Oh say, Mr. Rokesmith! Did I? ” 

“ Don’t be distressed. Miss Wilfer; it matters very little 
now.” 

“ Ah! You can’t deny it, though! ” said Mr. Boffin, with 
a knowing shake of his head. 

“ But I have asked him to forgive me since,” cried Bella; 
“ and I would ask him to forgive me now again, upon my 
knees, if it would spare him! ” 

Here Mrs. Boffin broke out a-crying. 

“ Old lady,” said Mr. Boffin, “ stop that noise! Tender- 
hearted in you. Miss Bella; but I mean to have it out right 
through with this young man, having got him into a corner. 
Now, you Rokesmith. I tell you that’s one side of your 
conduct — Insolence and Presumption. Now I’m a-coming 
to the other, which is much worse. This was a speculation 
of yours.” 

“ I indignantly deny it.” 

“ It’s of no use your denying it; it doesn’t signify a bit 
whether you deny it or not; I’ve got a head on my shoulders, 
and it ain’t a baby’s. What!” said Mr. Boffin, gathering 
himself together in his most suspicious attitude, and wrink- 
ling his face into a very map of curves and corners. “ Don’t 
I know what grabs are made at a man with money? If I 
didn’t keep my eyes open, and my pockets buttoned, shouldn’t 
I be brought to the workhouse before I knew v^^here I was? 


668 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Wasn’t the experience of Dancer, and Elwes, and Hopkins, 
and Blewbury Jones, and ever so many more of ’em, similar 
to mine? Didn’t everybody want to make grabs at what 
they’d got, and bring ’em to poverty and ruin? Weren’t 
they forced to hide everything belonging to ’em, for fear it 
should be snatched from ’em ? Of course they was. I shall 
be told next that they didn’t know human natur! ” 

“ They! Poor creatures,” murmured the Secretary. 

“ What do you say? ” asked Mr. Boffin, snapping at him. 
“ However, you needn’t be at the trouble of repeating it, 
for it ain’t worth hearing, and won’t go down with Tne. I’m 
a-going to unfold your plan before this young lady; I’m 
a-going to show this young lady the second view of you; and 
nothing you can say will stave it off. (Now, attend here, 
Bella, my dear.) Rokesmith, you’re a needy chap. You’re 
a chap that I pick up in the street. Are you, or ain’t 
you?” 

“ Go on, Mr. Boffin; don’t appeal to me.” 

“ Not appeal to you” retorted Mr. Boffin as if he hadn’t 
done so. No, I should hope not! Appealing to you would 
be rather a rum course. As I was saying, you’re a needy 
chap that I pick up in the street. You come and ask me in 
the street to take you for a Secretary, and I take you. Very 
good.” 

Very bad,” murmured the Secretary. 

“ What do you say? ” asked Mr. Boffin, snapping at him 
again. 

He returned no answer. Mr. Boffin, after eyeing him with 
a comical look of discomfited curiosity, was fain to begin 
afresh. 

This Rokesmith is a needy young man that I take for 
my Secretary out of the open street. This Rokesmith gets 
acquainted with my affairs, and gets to know that I mean to 
settle a sum of money on this young lady. ‘ Oho! ’ says this 
Rokesmith ; ” here Mr. Boffin clapped a finger against his 
nose, and tapped it several times with a sneaking air, as 
embodying Rokesmith confidentially confabulating with his 
own nose; “ ‘ This will be a good haul; I’ll go in for this! ’ 
And so this Rokesmith, greedy and hungering, begins a-creep- 
ing on his hands and knees towards the money. Not so 


THE , GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST 669 

bad a speculation either: for if this young lady had had less 
spirit, or had had less sense, through being at all in thf^ 
romantic line, by George he might have worked it out and 
made it pay! But fortunately she was too many for him, 
and a pretty figure he cuts now he is exposed. There he 
stands! ” said Mr. Boffin, addressing Rokesmith himself with 
ridiculous inconsistency. “ Look at him! ” 

“ Your unfortunate suspicions, Mr. Boffin ” began the 

Secretary. 

“ Precious unfortunate for you, I can tell you,” said Mr. 
Boffin. 

“ — are not to be combated by any one, and I address 
myself to no such hopeless task. But I will say a word upon 
the truth.” 

“ Yah! Much you care about the truth,” said Mr. Boffin, 
with a snap of his fingers. 

Noddy! My dear love! ” expostulated his wife. 

“ Old lady,” returned Mr. Boffin, “ you keep still. I say 
to this Rokesmith here, much he cares about the truth. I 
tell him again, much he cares about the truth.” 

“ Our connection being at an end, Mr. Boffin,” said the 
Secretary, it can be of very little moment to me what you 
say.” 

“Oh! You are knowing enough,” retorted Mr. Boffin, 
with a sly look, “ to have found out that our connection’s at 
an end, eh ? But you can’t get beforehand with me. Look at 
this in my hand. This is your pay, on your discharge. You 
can only follow suit. You can’t deprive me of the lead. Let’s 
have no pretending that you discharge yourself. I discharge 
you.” 

“ So that I go,” remarked the Secretary, waving the point 
aside with his hand, “ it is all one to me.” 

“ Is it? ” said Mr. Boffin. “ But it’s two to me, let me tell 
you. Allowing a fellow that’s found out to discharge himself, 
is one thing; diseharging him for insolence and presumption, 
and likewise for designs upon his master’s money, is another. 
One and one’s two; not one. (Old lady, don’t you cut in. 
You keep still.)” 

“ Have you said all you wish to say to me? ’’demanded 
the Secretary. 


670 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I don’t know whether I have or not,” answered Mr. Bof- 
fin. “ It depends.” 

“ Perhaps you will consider whether there are any other 
strong expressions that you would like to bestow upon me? ” 

“ ril consider that,” said Mr. Boffin, obstinately, “at my 
convenience, and not at yours. You want the last word. It 
may not be suitable to let you have it.” 

“ Noddy! My dear, dear Noddy! You sound so hard,” 
cried poor Mrs. Boffin, not to be quite repressed. 

“ Old lady,” said her husband, but without harshness, “ if 
you cut in when requested not. I’ll get a pillow and carry 
you out of the room upon it. What do you want to say, you 
Rokesmith ? ” 

“ To you, Mr. Boffin, nothing. But to Miss Wilfer and 
to your good kind wife, a word.” 

“ Out with it then,” replied Mr. Boffin, “ and cut it short, 
for we’ve had enough of you.” 

“ I have borne,” said the Secretary, in a low voice, “ with 
my false position here, that I might not be separated from 
Miss Wilfer. To be near her has been a recompense to me 
from day to day, even for the undeserved treatment I have had 
here, and for the degraded aspect in which she has often 
seen me. Since Miss Wilfer rejected me, I have never again 
urged my suit, to the best of my belief, with a spoken syllable 
or a look. But I have never changed in my devotion to 
her, except — if she will forgive my saying so — that it is 
deeper than it was, and better founded.” 

“ Now, mark this chap’s saying Miss Wilfer, when he 
means £ s. d.! ” cried Mr. Boffin, with a cunning wink. 
“ Now, mark this chap’s making Miss Wilfer stand for 
Pounds, Shillings, and Pence!” 

“ My feeling for Miss Wilfer,” pursued the Secretary, 
without deigning to notice him, “ is not one to be ashamed 
of. I avow it. I love her. Let me go where I may when 
I presently leave this house, I shall go into a blank life, 
leaving her.” 

“ Leaving £ s. d. behind me,” said Mr. Boffin, by way of 
commentary, with another wink. 

“ That I am incapable,” the Secretary went on, still 
without heeding him, “ of a mercenary project, or a mer- 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST 


671 


cenary thought, in connection with Miss Wilfer, is nothing 
meritorious in me, because any prize that I could put before 
my fancy would sink into insignificance beside her. If the 
greatest wealth or the highest rank were hers, it would only 
be important in my sight as removing her still further from 
me, and making me more hopeless, if that could be. Say,” 
remarked the Secretary, looking full at his late master, “ say 
that with a word she could strip Mr. Boffin of his fortune 
and take possession of it, she would be of no greater worth 
in my eyes than she is.” 

‘‘ What do you think by this time, old lady,” asked Mr. 
Boffin, turning to his wife in a bantering tone, ” about this 
Rokesmith here, and his caring for the truth? You needn’t 
say what you think, my dear, because I don’t want you to 
cut in, but you can think it all the same. As to taking pos- 
session of my property, I warrant you he wouldn’t do that 
himself if he could.” 

“ No,” returned the Secretary, wdth another full look. 

“ Ha, ha, ha! ” laughed Mr. Boffin. “ There’s nothing like 
a good ’un while you are about it.” 

” I have been for a moment,” said the Secretary, turning 
from him and falling into his former manner, “ diverted 
from the little I have to say. My interest in Miss Wilfer 
began wdien I first saw her; even began when I had only 
heard of her. It was, in fact, the cause of my throwing 
myself in Mr. Boffin’s way, and entering his service. Miss 
Wilfer has never known this until now. I mention it now, 
only as a corroboration (though I hope it may be needless) 
of my being free from the sordid design attributed to me.” 

“ Now this is a very artful dodge,” said Mr. Boffin, with 
a deep look. “ This is a longer-headed schemer than I 
thought him. See how patiently and methodically he goes 
to work. He gets to know about me and my property, 
and about this young lady, and her share in poor young 
John’s story, and he puts this and that together, and he 
says to himself, ‘ I’ll get in with Boffin, and I’ll get in with 
this young lady, and I’ll work ’em both at the same time, 
and I’ll bring my pigs to market somewhere.’ I hear him 
say it, bless you! Why, I look at him, now, and I see him 
say it.” 


672 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Mr. Boffin pointed at the culprit, as it were in the act, 
and hugged himself in his great penetration. 

But luckily he hadn’t to deal with the people he sup- 
posed, Bella, my dear! ” said Mr. Boffin. “ No! Luckily he 
had to deal with you, and with me, and with Daniel and 
Miss Dancer, and with Elwes, and with Vulture Hop- 
kins, and with Blewbury Jones and all the rest of us, 
one down t’other come on. And he’s beat; that’s what 
he is; regularly beat. He thought to squeeze money 
out of us, and he has done for himself instead, Bella, my 
dear!” 

Bella my dear made no response, gave no sign of acquies- 
cence. When she had first covered her face she had sunk 
upon a chair with her hands resting on the back of it, and 
had never moved since. There was a short silence at this 
point, and Mrs. Boffin softly rose as if to go to her. But 
Mr. Boffin stopped her with a gesture, and she obediently 
sat down again and stayed where she was. 

“There’s your pay, Mr. Rokesmith,” said the Golden 
Dustman, jerking the folded scrap of paper he had in his 
hand towards his late Secretary. “ I dare say you can stoop 
to pick it up, after what you have stooped to here.” 

“ I have stooped to nothing but this,” Rokesmith answered 
as he took it from the ground; “ and this is mine, for I have 
earned it by the hardest of hard labour.” 

“You’re a pretty quick packer, I hope,” said Mr. Boffin; 
“ because the sooner you are gone, bag and baggage, the 
better for all parties.” 

“You need have no fear of my lingering.” 

“ There’s just one thing though,” said Mr. Boffin, “ that 
I should like to ask you before we come to a good riddance, 
if it was only to show this young lady how conceited you 
schemers are, in thinking that nobody finds out how you 
contradict yourselves.” 

“ Ask me anything you wish to ask,” returned Rokesmith, 
“ but use the expedition that you recommend.” 

“ You pretend to have a mighty admiration for this young 
lady ? said Mr. Boffin, laying his hand protectingly on 
Bella’s head without looking down at her. 

“ I do not pretend.” 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST 673 

“ Oh! Well. You have a mighty admiration for this 
young lady — since you are so particular.” 

Yes.” 

How do you reconcile that, with this young lady’s being 
a weak-spirited, improvident idiot, not knowing what was 
due to herself, flinging up her money to the cliurch-weather- 
cocks, and racing off at a splitting pace for the work- 
house ? ” 

“ I don’t understand you.” 

“ Don’t you? Or won’t you? What else could you have 
made this young lady out to be, if she had listened to such 
addresses as yours ? ” 

“ What else, if I had been so happy as to win her affections 
and possess her heart?” 

‘‘ Win her affections,” retorted Mr. Boffin, with ineffable 
contempt, “ and possess her heart! Mew says the cat. Quack- 
quack says the duck. Bow- wow- wow says the dog! Win her 
affections and possess her heart! Mew, Quack-quack, Bow- 
wow! ” 

John Rokesmith stared at him in his outburst, as if with 
some faint idea that he had gone mad. 

“ What is due to this young lady,” said Mr. Boffin, “ is 
Money, and this young lady right well knows it.” 

“ You slander the young lady.” 

“ You slander the young lady; you with your affections 
and hearts and trumpery,” returned Mr. Boffin. “It’s of 
a piece with the rest of your behaviour. I heard of these 
doings of yours only last night, or you should have heard 
of ’em from me sooner, take your oath of it. I heard of 
’em from a lady with as good a headpiece as the best, and 
she knows this young lady, and I know this young lady, and 
we all three know that it’s Money she makes a stand for — 
money, money, money — and that you and your affections 
and hearts are a Lie, sir! ” 

“ Mrs. Boffin,” said Rokesmith, quietly turning to her, 
“ for your delicate and unvarying kindness I thank you with 
the warmest gratitude. Good-bye! Miss Wilfer, good- 
bye!” 

“ And now, my dear,” said Mr. Boffin, laying his hand 
on Bella’s head again, “ you may begin to make yourself 


674 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


quite comfortable, and I hope you feel that you’ve been 
righted.” 

But Bella was so far from appearing to feel it, that she 
shrank from his hand and from the chair, and, starting up in 
an incoherent passion of tears, and stretching out her arms, 
cried, “ Oh, Mr. Rokesmith, before you go, if you could but 
make me poor again! Oh! Make me poor again. Some- 
body, I beg and pray, or my heart will break if this goes 
on! Pa, dear, make me poor again and take me home! 
I was bad enough there, but I have been so much worse 
here. Don’t give me money, Mr. Boffin, I won’t have money. 
Keep it away from me, and only let me speak to good little 
Pa, and lay my head upon his shoulder, and tell him all my 
griefs. Nobody else can understand me, nobody else can 
comfort me, nobody else knows how unworthy I am, and yet 
can love me like a little child. I am better with Pa than any 
one — more innocent, more sorry, more glad ! ” So, crying 
out in a wild way that she could not bear this, Bella dropped 
her head on Mrs. Boffin’s ready breast. 

John Rokesmith from his place in the room, and Mr. 
Boffin from his, looked on at her in silence until she was 
silent herself. Then Mr. Boffin observed in a soothing and 
comfortable tone, “ There, my dear, there; you are righted 
now, and it’s all right. I don’t wonder. Pm sure, at your 
being a little flurried by having a scene with this fellow, but 
it’s all over, my dear, and you’re righted, and it’s — and it’s 
all right! ” Which Mr. Boffin repeated with a highly satisfied 
air of completeness and finality. 

‘‘ I hate you! ” cried Bella, turning suddenly upon him, 
with a stamp of her little foot — ^‘at least, I can’t hate 
you, but I don’t like you! ” 

‘‘ Hul — Lo!” exclaimed Mr. Boffin in an amazed under- 
tone. 

“ You’re a scolding, unjust, abusive, aggravating, bad old 
creature!” cried Bella. am angry with my ungrateful 
self for calling you names; but you are, you are; you know 
you are! ” 

^ Mr. Boffin stared here, and stared there, as misdoubting 
that he must be in some sort of fit. 

“ I have heard you with shame,” said Bella. With 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST 


675 


shame for myself, and with shame for you. You ought to 
be above the base tale-bearing of a time-serving woman; but 
you are above nothing now.” 

Mr. Boffin, seeming to become convinced that this was 
a fit, rolled his eyes and loosened his neckcloth. 

“ When I came here, I respected you and honoured you, 
and I soon loved you,” cried Bella. And now I can’t bear 
the sight of you. At least, I don’t know that I ought to go 
so far as that — only you’re a — you’re a Monster! ” Having 
shot this bolt out with a great expenditure of force, Bella 
hysterically laughed and cried together. 

“ The best wish I can wish you is,” said Bella, returning 
to the charge, “ that you had not one single farthing in the 
world. If any true friend and well-wisher could make you 
a bankrupt you would be a Duck; but as a man of property 
you are a Demon! ” 

After dispatching this second bolt with a still greater 
expenditure of force, Bella laughed and cried still more. 

“ Mr. Rokesmith, pray stay one moment. Pray hear one 
word from me before you go! I am deeply sorry for the 
reproaches you have borne on my account. Out of the depths 
of my heart I earnestly and truly beg your pardon.” 

As she stepped towards him, he met her. As she gave 
him her hand, he put it to his lips, and said, “ God bless 
you!” No laughing was mixed with Bella’s ciying then; 
her tears were pure and fervent. 

“ There is not an ungenerous word that I have heard 
add»ssed to you — heard with scorn and indignation, Mr. 
Rokesmith — but it has wounded me far more than you, for 
I have deserved it, and you never have. Mr. Rokesmith, 
it is to me you owe this perverted account of what passed 
between us that night. I parted with the secret, even while * 
I was angry with myself for doing so. It was very bad in me, 
but indeed it was not wicked. I did it in a moment of con- 
ceit and folly — one of my many such moments — one of 
my many such hours — years. As I am punished for it 
severely, try to forgive it! ” 

“ I do with all my soul.” 

“ Thank you. Oh, thank you! Don’t part from me till I 
have said one other word to do you justice. The only fault 


676 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


you can be truly charged with, in having spoken to me as 
you did that night — with how much delicacy and how much 
forbearance no one but I can know or be grateful to you for 
— is that you laid yourself open to be slighted by a worldly 
shallow girl whose head was turned, and who was quite 
unable to rise to the worth of what you offered her. Mr. 
Rokesmith, that girl has often seen herself in a pitiful and 
poor light since, but never in as pitiful and poor a light as 
now, when the mean tone in which she answered you — 
sordid and vain girl that she was — has been echoed in her 
ears by Mr. Boffin.” 

He kissed her hand again. 

“ Mr. Boffin’s speeches were detestable to me, shocking 
to me,” said Bella, startling that gentleman with another 
stamp of her little foot. “It is quite true that there was 
a time, and very lately, when I deserv^ed to be so * righted,’ 
Mr. Rokesmith; but I hope that I shall never deserve it 
again! ” 

He once more put her hand to his lips, and then relin- 
quished it, and left the room. Bella was hurrying back to 
the chair in which she had hidden her face so long, when, 
catching sight of Mrs. Boffin by the way, she stopped at 
her. “ He is gone,” sobbed Bella, indignantly, despairingly, 
in fifty ways at once, with her arms round Mrs. Boffin’s 
neck. “ He has been most shamefully abused, and most 
unjustly and most basely driven away, and I am the cause 
of it!” 

All this time Mr. Boffin had been rolling his eyes 6ver 
his loosened neckerchief, as if his fit were still upon him. 
Appearing now to think that he was coming to, he stared 
straight before him for a while, tied his neckerchief again, 
took several long inspirations, swallowed several times, and 
ultimately exclaimed with a deep sigh, as if he felt himself 
on the whole better: “ Well! ” 

No word, good or bad, did Mrs. Boffin say; but she ten- 
derly took care of Bella, and glanced at her husband as if 
for orders. Mr. Boffin, without imparting any, took his 
seat on a chair over against them, and there sat leaning 
forward, with a fixed countenance, his legs apart, a hand on 
each knee, and his elbows squared, until Bella should dry her 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST 677 

ayes and raise her head, which in the fulness of time she 
did. 

“ I must go home,’' said Bella, rising hurriedly. “ I am 
very grateful to you for all you have done for me, but I 
can’t stay here.” 

“ My darling girl! ” remonstrated Mrs. Boffin. 

“ No, I can’t stay here,” said Bella; “ I can’t indeed. — 
Ugh! you vicious old thing! ” (This to Mr. Boffin.) 

“ Don’t be rash, my love,” urged Mrs. Boffin. “ Think 
well of what you do.” 

“Yes, you had better think well,” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ I shall never more think well of ym,” cried Bella, cut- 
ting him short, with intense defiance in her expressive little 
eyebrows, and championship of the late Secretary in every 
dimple. “ No! Never again! Your money has changed 
you to marble. You are a hard-hearted Miser. You are 
worse than Dancer, worse than Hopkins, worse than Black- 
berry Jones, worse than any of the wretches. And more! ” 
proceeded Bella, breaking into tears again, “ you were wholly 
undeserving of the Gentleman you have lost.” 

“ Why, you don’t mean to say. Miss Bella,” the Golden 
Dustman slowly remonstrated, “ that you set up Rokesmith 
against me ? ” 

“I do!” said Bella. “He is worth a Million of 
you.” 

Very pretty she looked, though very angry, as she made 
herself as tall as she possibly could (which was not extremely 
tall), and utterly renounced her patron with a lofty toss of 
her rich brown head. 

“ I would rather he thought well of me,” said Bella, 
“ though he swept the street for bread, than that you did, 
though you splashed the mud upon him from the wheels of 
a chariot of pure gold. — There!” 

“ Well, I’m sure! ” cried Mr. Boffin, staring. 

“ And for a long time past, when you have thought you 
set yourself above him, I have only seen you under his feet,” 
said Bella — “There! And throughout I saw* in him the 
master, and I saw in you the man — There! And when you 
used him shamefully, I took his part and loved him — 
There! I boast of it! ” After which strong avowal Bella 


678 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


underwent reaction, and cried to any extent, with her face 
on the back of her chair. 

Now, l6ok here,” said Mr. Boffin, as soon as he could 
find an opening for breaking the silence and striking in. 
“ Give me your attention, Bella. I am not angry.” 

I am! ” said Bella. 

“ I say,” resumed the Golden Dustman, “ I am not angry, 
and I mean kindly to you, and I want to overlook this. So 
you’ll stay where you are, and we’ll agree to say no jnore 
about it.” 

“No, I can’t stay here,” cried Bella, rising hurriedly 
again; “ I can’t think of staying here. I must go home for 
good.” 

“ Now, don’t be silly,” Mr. Boffin reasoned. “ Don’t do 
what you can’t undo; don’t do what you’re sure to be sorry 
for.” 

“ I shall never be sorry for it,” said Bella; “ and I should 
always be sorry, and should every minute of my life despise 
myself, if I remained here after what has happened.” 

“ At least, Bella,” argued Mr. Boffin, “ let there be no 
mistake about it. I^ook before you leap, you know. Stay 
where you are, and all’s well, and all’s as it was to be. Go 
away, and you can never come back.” 

“ I know that I can never come back, and that’s what 
I mean,” said Bella. 

“You mustn’t expect,” Mr. Boffin pursued, “that I’m 
a-going to settle money on you, if you leave us like this, 
because I am not. No, Bella! Be careful! Not one brass 
farthing.” 

“Expect!” said Bella, haughtily. “Do you think 
that any power on earth could make me take it, if you did, 
sir?” 

But there was Mrs. Boffin to part from, and, in the full 
flush of her dignity, the impressible little soul collapsed 
again. Down upon her knees before that good woman, she 
rocked herself upon her breast, and cried, and sobbed, and 
folded her ih her arms with all her might. 

“ You’re a dear, a dear, the best of dears! ” cried Bella. 

“ You’re the best of human creatures. I can never be 
thankful enough to you, and can never forget you. If I 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST 679 

should live to be blind and deaf, I know I shall see and 
hear you, in my fancy, to the last of my dim old days! 

Mrs. Boffin wept most heartily, and embraced her with all 
fondness; but said not one single word except that she was 
her dear girl. She said that often enough, to be sure, for 
she said it over and over again; but not one word else. 

Bella broke from her at length, and was going weeping out 
of the room, when in her own little queer affectionate way 
she half relented towards Mr. Boffin. 

I am very glad,'’ sobbed Bella, “ that I called you names, 
sir, because you richly deserved it. But I am very sorry that 
I called you names, because you used to be so different. 
Say good-bye!” 

“ Good-bye,” said Mr. Boffin, shortly. 

“ If I knew which of your hands was the least spoilt, I 
would ask you to let me touch it,” said Bella, “ for the last 
time. But not because I repent of what I have said to you. 
For I don’t. It’s true ! ” 

“ Try the left hand,” said Mr. Boffin, holding it out in a 
stolid manner; “ it’s the least used.” 

You have been wonderfully good and kind to me,” said 
Bella, “ and I kiss it for that. You have been as bad as bad 
could be to Mr. Rokesmith, and I throw it away for that. 
Thank you for myself, and good-bye ! ” 

“ Good-bye,” said Mr. Boffin as before. 

Bella caught him round the neck and kissed him, and ran 
out for ever. 

She ran up-stairs, and sat down on the floor in her own 
room and cried abundantly. But the day was declining and 
she had no time to lose. She opened all the places where 
she kept her dresses; selected only those she had brought 
with her, leaving all the rest; and made a great misshapen 
bundle of them to be sent for afterwards. 

“ I won’t take one of the others,” said Bella, tying the 
knots of the bundle very tight, in the severity of her resolu- 
tion. “I’ll leave all the presents behind, and begin again 
entirely on my own account.” That the resolution might 
be thoroughly carried Into practice, she even changed the 
dress she wore for that in which she had come to the 
grand mansion. Even the bonnet she put on was the 


680 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 

bonnet that had mounted into the Boffin chariot at Hollo- 
way. 

“ Now I am complete,” said Bella. “ It’s a little trying, 
but I have steeped my eyes in cold water, and I won’t cry 
any more. You have been a pleasant room to me, dear room. 
Adieu! We shall never see each other again.” 

With a parting kiss of her fingers to it she softly closed 
the door, and went with a light foot down the great staircase, 
pausing and listening as she w^ent, that she might meet none 
of the household. No one chanced to be about, and she got 
down to the hall in quiet. The door of the late Secretary’s 
room stood open. She peeped in as she passed, and divined 
from the emptiness of his table, and the general appearance 
of things, that he was already gone. Softly opening the 
great hall door, and softly closing it upon herself, she turned 
and kissed it on the outside — insensible old combination of 
wood and iron that it was! — before she ran away from the 
house at a swift pace. 

“That was well done!” panted Bella, slackening in the 
next street, and subsiding into a walk. “ If I had left myself 
any breath to cry with, I should have cried again. Now poor 
dear darling little Pa, you are going to see your lovely woman 
unexpectedly.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS 

The City looked unpromising enough, as Bella made her 
way along its gritty streets. Most of its money-mills were 
slackening sail, or had left off grinding for the day. The 
master-millers had already departed, and the journeymen 
were departing. There was a jaded aspect on the business 
lanes and courts, and the very pavements had a weary appear- 
ance, confused by the tread of a million of feet. There must 
be hours of night to temper down the day's distraction of 
so feverish a place. As yet the worry of the newly-stopped 
whirling and grinding on the part of the money-mills seemed 
to linger in the air, and the quiet was more like the prostra- 
tion of a spent giant than the repose of one who was renewing 
his strength. 

If Bella thought, as she glanced at the mighty Bank, how 
agreeable it would be to have an hour's gardening there, 
with a bright copper shovel, among the money, still she was 
not in an avaricious vein. Much improved in that respect, 
and with certain half-formed images which had little gold in 
their composition, dancing before her bright eyes, she arrived 
in the drug-flavoured region of Mincing Lane, with the 
sensation of having just opened a drawer in a chemist's shop. 

The counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles 
was pointed out by an elderly female accustomed to the 
care of offices, who dropped upon Bella out of a public-house, 
wiping her mouth, and accounted for its humidity on natural 
principles well known to the physical sciences, by explaining 
that she had looked in at the door to see what o’clock it was. 
The counting-house was a wall-eyed ground-floor by a dark 
gateway, and Bella was considering, as she approached it, 
could there be any precedent in the City for her going in and 


682 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


asking for R. Wilfer, when whom should she see, sitting 
at one of the windows with the plate-glass sash raised, but 
R. Wilfer himself, preparing to take a slight refection. 

On approaching nearer, Bella discerned that the refection 
had the appearance of a small cottage-loaf and a pennyworth 
of milk. Simultaneously with this discovery on her part, 
her father discovered her, and invoked the echoes of Mincing 
Lane to exclaim “ My gracious me! ” 

He then came cherubically flying out without a hat, and 
embraced her, and handed her in. “ For it’s after hours and 
I am all alone, my dear,” he explained, “ and am having — as 
I sometimes do, when they are all gone — a quiet tea.” 

Looking round the office, as if her father were a captive 
and this his cell, Bella hugged him and choked him to her 
heart’s content. 

“ I never was so surprised, my dear,” said her father. “ I 
couldn’t believe my eyes. Upon my life, I thought they had 
taken to lying! The idea of your coming down the Lane 
yourself! Why didn’t you send the footman down the Lane, 
my dear ? ’* 

“ I have brought no footman with me. Pa.” 

“ Oh, indeed! But you have brought the elegant turn-out, 
my love? ” 

“ No, Pa.” 

You never can have walked, my dear? ” 

“ Yes, I have. Pa.” 

He looked so very much astonished, that Bella could not 
make up her mind to break it to him just yet. 

“ The consequence is. Pa, that your lovely woman feels a 
little faint, and would very much like to share your tea.” 

The cottage-loaf and the pennyw^orth of milk had been set 
forth on a sheet of paper on the window-seat. The cherubic 
pocket-knife, with the first bit of the loaf still on its point, 
lay beside them where it had been hastily thrown down. 
Bella took the bit off, and put it in her mouth. “ My dear 
child,” said her father, “ the idea of your partaking of such 
lowly fare! But, at least, you must have your own loaf and 
your own penn’orth. One moment, my dear. The Dairy is 
just over the way and round the corner.” 

Regardless of Bella’s dissuasions he ran out, and quickly 


THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS 683 

returned with the new supply. “ My dear child/' he said, as 
he spread it on another piece of paper before her, “ the idea 
of a splendid — — I ” and then looked at her figure, and 
stopped short. 

“ What’s the matter. Pa? ” 

“ — of a splendid female,” he resumed, more slowly, 
“ putting up with such accommodation as the present I — Is 
that a new dress you have on, my dear? ” 

“ No, Pa, an old one. Don’t you remember it ? ” 

Why, I thought I remembered it, my dear! ” 

“You should, for you bought it, Pa.” 

“ Yes, I thought I bought it, my dear! ” said the cherub, 
giving himself a little shake, as if to rouse his faculties. 

“ And have you grown so fickle that you don’t like your 
own taste. Pa, dear? ” 

“ Well, my love,” he returned, swallowing a bit of the 
cottage-loaf with considerable effort, for it seemed to stick by 
the way: “I should have thought it was hardly sufficiently 
splendid for existing circumstances.” 

“And so. Pa,” said Bella, moving coaxingly to his side, 
instead of remaining opposite, “ you sometimes have a quiet 
tea here all alone ? I am not in the tea’s way, if I draw my 
arm over your shoulder like this, Pa ? ” 

“Yes, my dear, and no, my dear. Yes to the first question, 
and certainly Not to the second. Respecting the quiet tea, my 
dear, why you see the occupations of the day are sometimes 
a little wearing; and if there’s nothing interposed between 
the day and your mother, why she is sometimes a little wear- 
ing too.” 

“ I know. Pa.” 

“ Yes, my dear. So sometimes I put a quiet tea at the 
window here, with a little quiet contemplation of the Lane 
(which comes soothing), between the day, and domestic ” 

“ Bliss,” suggested Bella, sorrowfully. 

“ And domestic BlLss,” said her father, quite contented to 
accept the phrase. 

Bella kissed him. “And it is in this dark, dingy place of 
captivity, poor dear, that you pass all the hours of youy life 
when you are not at home ? ” 

“ Not at home, or not on the road there, or on the road 


684 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


here, my love. Yes. You see that little desk in the cor- 
ner? ” 

“ In the dark corner, furthest both from the light and 
from the fireplace ? The shabbiest desk of all the desks ? 

“ Now does it really strike you in that point of view, 
my dear? said her father, surveying it artistically with his 
head on one side: “that's mine. That’s called Rumty’s 
Perch.” 

“ Whose Perch? ” asked Bella, with great indignation. 

“ Rumty’s. You see, being rather high and up two steps, 
they call it a Perch. And they call me Rumty.” 

“ How dare they! ” exclaimed Bella. 

“They’replayful, Bella, my dear; they’re playful. They’re 
more or less younger than I am, and they’re playful. What 
does it matter? It might be Surly, or Sulky, or fifty dis- 
agreeable things that I really shouldn’t like to be considered. 
But Rumty I Lor, why not Rumty ? ” 

To inflict a heavy disappointment on this sweet nature, 
which had been, through all her caprices, the object of her 
recognition, love, and admiration from infancy, Bella felt to 
be the hardest task of her hard day. “ I should have done 
better,” she thought, “ to tell him at first; I should have 
done better to tell him just now, when he had some slight 
misgiving; he is quite happy again, and I shall make him 
wretched.” 

He was falling back on his loaf and milk, with the pleasant- 
est composure, and Bella, stealing her arm a little closer 
about him, and at the same time sticking up his hair with 
an irresistible propensity to play with him, founded on the 
habit of her whole life, had prepared herself to say; 
“ Pa, dear, don’t be cast down, but I must tell you some- 
thing disagreeable! ” when he interrupted her in an unlooked- 
for manner. 

“ My gracious me!” he exclaimed, invoking the Mincing 
Lane echoes as before. “ This is very extraordinary! ” 

“ What is. Pa? ” 

“ Why, here’s Mr. Rokesmith now! ” 

“ No, no. Pa, no,” cried Bella, greatly flurried. “ Surely 
not.” 

“ Yes, there is! Look here! ” 


THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS 685 


Sooth to say, Mr. Rokesmith not only passed the window, 
but came into the counting-house. And not only came into 
the counting-house, but, finding himself alone there with 
Bella and her father, rushed at Bella and caught her in his 
arms, with the rapturous words, “ My dear, dear girl; my 
gallant, generous, disinterested, courageous, noble girl!'’ 
And not only that even (which one might have thought 
astonishment enough for one dose), but Bella, after hanging 
her head for a moment, lifted it up and laid it on his breast, 
as if that were her head’s chosen and lasting resting-place I 
“ I knew you would come to him, and I followed you,” 
said Rokesmith. “ My love, my life! You are mine? ” 

To which Bella responded, “ Yes, I am yours if you think 
me worth taking!” And after that seemed to shrink to 
next to nothing in the clasp of his arms, partly because it 
was such a strong one on his part, and partly because there 
was such a yielding to it on hers. 

The cherub, whose hair would have done for itself, under 
the influence of this amazing spectacle, what Bella had just 
now done for it, staggered back into the window-seat from 
which he had risen, and surveyed the pair with his eyes 
dilated to their utmost. 

“ But w,e must think of dear Pa,” said Bella; “ I haven’t 
told dear Pa; let us speak to Pa.” Upon which they turned 
to do so. 

I wish first, my dear,” remarked the cherub faintly, “ that 
you’d have the kindness to sprinkle me with a little milk, for 
I feel as if I was — Going.” 

In fact the good little fellow had become alarmingly limp, 
and his senses seemed to be rapidly escaping, from the knees 
upward. Bella sprinkled him with kisses instead of milk, but 
gave him a little of that article to drink; and he gradually 
revived under her caressing care. 

“ We’ll break it to you gently, dearest Pa,” said Bella. 

“ My dear,” returned the cherub, looking at them both, 
you broke so much in the first — Gush, if I may so express 
myself — that I think I am equal to a good large breakage 
now.” 

“ Mr. Wilfer,” said John Rokesmith, excitedly and joyfully, 
“ Bella takes me, though I have no fortune, even no present 


686 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


occupation; nothing but what I can get in the life before us. 
Bella takes me ! ” 

“ Yes, I should rather have inferred, rny dear sir,'' returned 
the cherub feebly, “ that Bella took you, from what I have 
within these few minutes remarked." 

You don't know. Pa," said Bella, “ how ill I have used 
him! " 

“You don't know, sir," said Rokesmith, “ what a heart 
she has 1 " 

“ You don't know. Pa," said Bella, “ what a shocking 
creature I was growing, when he saved me from myself I " 

“ You don't know, sir," said Rokesmith, “ what a sacrifice 
she has made for me! " 

“ My dear Bella," replied the cherub, still pathetic*ally 
scared, “ and my dear John Rokesmith, if you will allow me 
so to call you " 

“Yes, do. Pa, do! " urged Bella. “ I allow you, and my 
will is his law. Isn't it — dear John Rokesmith? " 

There was an engaging shyness in Bella, coupled with an 
engaging tenderness of love and confidence and pride, in thus 
first calling him by name, which made it quite excusable in 
John Rokesmith to do what he did. What he did was, once 
more to give her the appearance of vanishing as aforesaid. 

“ I think, my dears," observed the cherub, “ that if you 
could make it convenient to sit one on one side of me, and the 
other on the other, we should get on rather more conse- 
cutively, and make things rather plainer. John Rokesmith 
mentioned, a while ago, that he had no present occupation." 

“ None," said Rokesmith. 

“ No, Pa, none," said Bella. 

“ From which I argue," proceeded the cherub, “ that he 
has left Mr. Boffin ? " 

“ Yes, Pa. And so " 

“ Stop a bit, my dear. I wish to lead up to it by degrees. 
And that Mr. Boffin has not treated him well? " 

“Has treated him most shamefully, dear Pa!" cried 
Bella, with a hashing face. 

“ Of which," pursued the cherub, enjoining patience with 
his hand, “ a certain mercenary young person distantly related 
to myself could not approve? Am I leading up to it right? " 


THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS 687 

“ Could not approve, sweet Pa/’ said Bella, with a tearful 
laugh and a joyful kiss. 

“ Upon which,” pursued the cherub, “ the certain mer- 
cenary young person distantly related to myself, having pre- 
viously observed and mentioned to myself that prosperity was 
spoiling Mr. Boffin, felt that she must not sell her sense of 
what was right and what was wrong, and what was true and 
what was false, and what was just and what was unjust, for 
any price that could be paid to her by any one alive? Am 
I leading up to it right ? ” 

With another tearful laugh Bella joyfully kissed him again. 

And therefore — and therefore,” the cherub went on in a 
glowing voice, as Bella’s hand stole gradually up his waist- 
coat to his neck, “ this mercenary young person distantly 
related to myself refused the price, took off the splendid 
fashions that were part of it, put on the comparatively poor 
dress that I had last given her, and trusting to my supporting 
her in what was right, came straight to me. Have I led up 
to it?” 

Bella’s hand was round his neck by this time, and her face 
was on it. 

“ The mercenary young person distantly related to myself,” 
said her good father, “ did well ! The mercenary young person 
distantly related to myself did not trust to me in vain! I 
admire this mercenary young person distantly related to 
myself, more in this dress than if she had come to me in 
China silks. Cashmere shawls, and Golconda diamonds. 
I love this young person dearly. I say to the man of this 
young person’s heart, out of my heart and with all of it, ‘ My 
blessing on this engagement betwixt you, and she brings you 
a good fortune wffien she brings you the poverty she has 
accepted for your sake and the honest truth’s! 

The staunch little man’s voice failed him as he gave John 
Rokesmith his hand, and he was silent, bending his face low 
over his daughter. But not for long. He soon looked up, 
saying in a sprightly tone : 

“ And now, my dear child, if you think you can entertain 
John Rokesmith for a minute and a half. I’ll run over to the 
Dairy, and fetch him a cottage-loaf and a drink of milk, that 
we may all have tea together.” 


688 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


It was, as Bella gaily said, like the supper provided for 
the three nursery hobgoblins at their house in the forest, 
without their thunderous low growlings of the alarming dis- 
covery, “Somebody’s been drinking my milk!” It was a 
delicious repast; by far the most delicious that Bella, or 
John Rokesmith, or even R. Wilfer, had ever made. The 
uncongenial oddity of its surroundings, with the two brass 
knobs of the iron safe of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles 
staring from a corner, like the eyes of some dull dragon, only 
made it the more delightful. 

“ To think,” said the cherub, looking round the office with 
unspeakable enjoyment, “ that anything of a tender nature 
should come off here, is what tickles me. To think that 
ever I should have seen my Bella folded in the arms of her 
future husband herey you know!” 

It was not until the cottage-loaves and the milk had for 
some time disappeared, and the foreshadowings of night were 
creeping over Mincing Lane, that the cherub by degrees 
became a little nervous, and said to Bella, as he cleared his 
throat: 

“ Hem! Have you thought at all about your mother, 

my dear ? ” 

“ Yes, Pa.” 

“And your sister Lavvy, for instan-ce, my dear? ” 

“ Yes, Pa. I think we had better not enter into particulars 
at home. I think it will be quite enough to say that 
I had a difference with Mr. Boffin, and have left for 
good.” 

“ John Rokesmith being acquainted with your Ma, my 
love,” said her father, after some slight hesitation, “ I need 
have no delicacy in hinting before him that you may perhaps 
find your Ma a little wearing.” 

“A little, patient Pa?” said Bella, with a tuneful laugh: 
the tunefuller for being so loving in its tone. 

“Well! We’ll say, strictly in confidence among ourselves, 
wearing; we won’t qualify it,” the cherub stoutly admitted. 
“ And your sister’s temper is wearing.” 

“ I don’t mind. Pa.” 

“ And you must prepare yourself, you know, my precious,” 
said her father, with much gentleness, “ for our looking very 


THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS 689 

poor and meagre at home, and being at the best but very 
uncomfortable, after Mr. Boffin's house." 

“ I don’t mind. Pa. I could bear much harder trials 

for John." 

The closing words were not so softly and blushingly said 
but that John heard them, and showed that he heard them 
by again assisting Bella to another of those mysterious dis- 
appearances. 

“Well!" said the cherub gaily, and not expressing dis- 
approval, “when you — when you come back from retire- 
ment, my love, and reappear on the surface, I think it will be 
time to lock up and go." 

If the counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles 
had ever been shut up by three happier people, glad as most 
people were to shut it up, they must have been superlatively 
happy indeed. But first Bella mounted upon Rumty’s 
Perch, and said, “ Show me what you do here all day long, dear 
Pa. Do you write like this ? " laying her round cheek upon 
her plump left arm, and losing sight of her pen in waves of 
hair, in a highly unbusiness-like manner. Though John 
Rokesmith seemed to like it. 

So the three hobgoblins, having effaced all traces of their 
feast, and swept up the crumbs, came out of Mincing Lane 
to walk to Holloway; and if two of the hobgoblins didn’t 
wish the distance twice as long as it was, the third hobgoblin 
was much mistaken. Indeed, that modest spirit deemed 
himself so much in the way of their deep enjoyment 
of the journey, that he apologetically remarked: “ I think, 
my dears, I’ll take the lead on the other side of the 
road, and seem not to belong to you.” Which he did, cherubi- 
cally strewing the path with smiles, in the absence of 
flowers. 

It was almost ten o’clock when they stopped within view of 
Wilfer Castle; and then, the spot being quiet and deserted, 
Bella began a series of disappearances which threatened to 
last all night. 

“ I think, John," the cherub hinted at last, “ that if you 
can spare me the young person distantly related to myself. 
I’ll take her in." 

“ I can’t spare her," answered John, “ but I must lend her 


690 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


to you. — My Darling! A word of magic which caused 
Bella instantly to disappear again) 

Now, dearest Pa,” said Bella, when she became visible, 
“put your hand in mine, and we’ll run home as fast as ever 
we can run, and get it over. Now, Pa. Once! ” 

“ My dear,” the cherub faltered, with something of a craven 
air, “ I was going to observe that if your mother ” 

“You mustn’t hang back, sir, to gain time,” cried Bella, 
putting out her right foot; “ do you see that, sir? That’s 
the mark; come up to the mark, sir. Once! Twice! Three 
times and away. Pa ! ” Off she skimmed, bearing the cherub 
along, nor ever stopped, nor suffered him to stop, until she 
had pulled at the bell. “ Now, dear Pa,” said Bella, taking 
him by both ears as if he were a pitcher, and conveying his 
face to her rosy lips, “ we are in for it! ” 

Miss Lavvy came out to open the gate, waited on by that 
attentive cavalier and friend of the family, Mr. George 
Sampson. “ Why, it’s never Bella! ” exclaimed Miss Lavvy, 
starting back at the sight. And then bawled, “ Ma! Here’s 
Bella!” 

This produced, before they could get into the house, Mrs. 
Wilfer. Who, standing in the portal, received them with 
ghostly gloom, and all her other appliances of ceremony. 

“My child is welcome, though unlooked-for,” said she, 
at the time presenting her cheek as if it were a cool slate 
for visitors to enrol themselves upon. “ You too, R. W., 
are welcome, though late. Does the male domestic of Mrs. 
Boffin hear me there ? ” This deep-toned inquiry was cast 
forth into the night, for response from the menial in question. 

“ There is no one waiting, Ma dear,” said Bella. 

“There is no one waiting?” repeated Mrs. Wilfer, in 
majestic accents. 

“ No, Ma dear.” 

A dignified shiver pervaded Mrs. Wilfer’s shoulders and 
gloves, as who should say, “An Enigma!” and then she 
marched at the head of the procession to the family keeping- 
room, where she observ^ed: 

“ Unless, R W. : ” who started on being solemnly turned 
upon: “you have taken the precaution of making some 
addition to our frugal supper on your way home, it will 


THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS 691 


prove but a distasteful one to Bella. Cold neck of mutton 
and a lettuce can ill compete with the luxuries of Mr. Boffin’s 
board.” 

“ Pray don’t talk like that, Ma dear,” said Bella; Mr. 
Boffin’s board is nothing to me.” 

But here Miss Lavinia, who had been intently eyeing 
Bella’s bonnet, struck in with “ Why, Bella! ” 

“Yes, Lavvy, I know.” 

The Irrepressible lowered her eyes to Bella’s dress, and 
stooped to look at it, exclaiming again: “ Why, Bella! ” 

“Yes, Lavvy, I know what I have got on. I was going 
to tell Ma when you interrupted. I have left Mr. Boffin’s 
house for good, Ma, and I have come home again.” 

Mrs. Wilfer spake no word, but, having glared at her 
offspring for a minute or two in an awful silence, retired 
into her corner of state backward, and sat down : like a frozen 
article on sale in a Russian market. 

“ In short, dear Ma,” said Bella, taking off the depreciated 
bonnet and shaking out her hair, “ I have had a very serious 
difference with Mr. Boffin on the subject of his treatment of 
a member of his household, and it’s a final difference, and 
there’s an end of all.” 

“ And I am bound to tell you, my dear,” added R W., 
submissively, “ that Bella has acted in a truly brave spirit, 
and with a truly right feeling. And therefore I hope, my 
dear, you’ll not allow yourself to be greatly disap- 
pointed.” 

“ George! ” said Miss Lavvy, in a sepulchral, warning 
voice, founded on her mother’s: “ George Sampson, speak! 
What did I tell you about those Boffins? ” 

Mr. Sampson perceiving his frail bark to be labouring 
among shoals and breakers, thought it safest not to refer 
back to any particular thing that he had been told, lest he 
should refer back to the wrong thing. With admirable 
seamanship he got his bark into deep water by murmuring, 
“ Yes, indeed.” 

“Yes! I told George Sampson, as George Sampson tells 
you,” said Miss Lavvy, “ that those hateful Boffins would 
pick a quarrel with Bella, as soon as her novelty had worn 
off. Have they done it, or have they not ? Was I right. 


692 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


or was I wrong ? And what do you say to us, Bella, of your 
Boffins now ? ” 

“ Lavvy and Ma,” said Bella, “ I say of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin 
what I always have said ; and I always shall say of them what 
I always have said. But nothing will induce me to quarrel 
with any one to-night. I hope you are not sorry to see me, 
Ma dear,’’ kissing her; “ and I hope you are not sorry to see 
me, Lavvy,” kissing her too; “ and as I notice the lettuce Ma 
mentioned, on the table. Til make the salad.” 

Bella playfully setting herself about the task, Mrs. Wilfer’s 
impressive countenance followed her with glaring eyes, pre- 
senting a combination of the once popular sign of the Saracen’s 
Head, with a piece of Dutch clockwork, and suggesting to an 
imaginative mind that from the composition of the salad, 
her daughter might prudently omit the vinegar. But no word 
issued from the majestic matron’s lips. And this was more 
terrific to her husband (as perhaps she knew) than any flow 
of eloquence with which she could have edified the company. 

“ Now, Ma dear,” said Bella, in due course, “ the salad’s 
ready, and it’s past supper-time.” 

Mrs. Wilfer rose, but remained speechless. “George!” 
said Miss Lavinia in her voice of warning, “ Ma’s chair! ” 
Mr. Sampson flew to the excellent lady’s back, and followed 
her up close, chair in hand, as she stalked to the banquet. 
Arrived at the table, she took her rigid seat, after favouring 
Mr. Sampson with a glare for himself, which caused the young 
gentleman to retire to his place in much confusion. 

The cherub not presuming to address so tremendous an 
object, transacted her supper through the agency of a third 
person, as “ Mutton to your Ma, Bella, my dear; ” and 
“ Lavvy, I dare say your Ma would take some lettuce if you 
were to put it on her plate.” Mrs. Wilfer’s manner of re- 
ceiving those viands was marked by petrified absence of 
mind; in which state, likewise, she partook of them, occasion- 
ally laying down her knife and fork, as saying within her 
own spirit, “ What is this I am doing? ” and glaring at one 
or other of the party, as if in indignant search of information. 
A magnetic result of such glaring was, that the person glareil 
at could not by any means successfully pretend to be ignorant 
of the fact: so that a bystander, without beholding Mrs. 


THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS 693 

Wilfer at all, must have known at whom she was glaring, by 
seeing her refracted from the countenance of the beglared one. 

Miss Lavinia was extremely affable to Mr. Sampson on 
this special occasion, and took the opportunity of informing 
her sister why. 

“ It was not worth troubling you about, Bella, when you 
were in a sphere so far removed from your family as to 
make it a matter in which you could be expected to take 
very little interest,” said Lavinia with a toss of her chin; 
“ but George Sampson is paying his addresses to me.” 

Bella was glad to hear it. Mr. Sampson became thought- 
fully red, and felt called upon to encircle Miss Lavinia’s waist 
with his arm; but encountering a large pin in the young 
lady’s belt, scarified a finger, uttered a sharp exclamation, 
and attracted the lightning of Mrs. Wilfer’s glare. 

“ George is getting on very well,” said Miss Lavinia — 
which might not have been supposed at the moment — ‘‘ and 
I dare say we shall be married one of these days. I didn’t 

care to mention it when you were with your Bof ” here 

Miss Lavinia checked herself in a bounce, and added more 
placidly, “when you were with Mr. and Mrs. Boffin; but 
now I think it sisterly to name the circumstance.” 

“ Thank you, Lavvy dear. I congratulate you.” 

“ Thank you, Bella. The truth is, George and I did 
discuss whether I should tell you; but I said to George that 
you wouldn’t be much interested in so paltry an affair, and 
that it was far more likely you would rather detach yourself 
from us altogether, than have him added to the rest of us.” 

“ That was a mistake, dear Lavvy,” said Bella. 

“ It turns out to be,” replied Miss Lavinia; “ but circum- 
stances have changed, you know, my dear. George is in a 
new situation, and his prospects are very good indeed. 
I should not have had the courage to tell you so yesterday, 
when you would have thought his prospects poor, and not 
worth notice; but I feel quite bold to-night.” 

“When did you begin to feel timid, Lavvy?” inquired 
Bella, with a smile. 

“ I didn’t say that I ever felt timid, Bella,” replied the 
Irrepressible. “ But perhaps I might have said, if I had not 
been restrained by delicacy towards a sister’s feelings, that 


694 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


1 have for some time felt independent; too independent, my 
dear, to subject myself to have my intended match (you’ll 
prick yourself again, George) looked down upon. It is not 
that I could have blamed you for looking down upon it, 
when you were looking up to a rich and great match, Bella; 
it is only that I was independent.” 

Whether the Irrepressible felt slighted by Bella’s declara- 
tion that she would not quarrel, or whether her spitefulness 
was evoked by Bella’s return to the sphere of Mr. George 
Sampson’s courtship, or whether it was a necessary fillip to 
her spirits that she should come into collision with somebody 
on the present occasion, — anyhow she made a dash at her 
stately parent now, with the gr atest impetuosity. 

“ Ma, pray don’t sit staring at me in that intensely aggra- 
vating manner! If you see a black on my nose, tell me so; 
if you don’t, leave me alone.” 

“ Do you address Me in those words?” said Mrs. Wilfer. 
“ Do you presume? ” 

“ Don’t talk about presuming, Ma, for goodness’ sake. 
A girl who is old enough to be engaged, is quite old enough 
to object to be stared at as if she was a Clock.” 

“ Audacious one! ” said Mrs. Wilfer. Your grand- 
mamma, if so addressed by one of her daughters, at any 
age, would have insisted on her retiring to a dark apart- 
ment.” 

“ My grandmamma,” returned Lavvy, folding her arms and 
leaning back in her chair, “ wouldn’t have sat staring people 
out of countenance, I think.” 

“ She would! ” said Mrs. Wilfer. 

“ Then it’s a pity she didn’t know better,” said Lavvy. 
“ And if my grandmamma wasn’t in her dotage when she 
took to insisting on people’s retiring to dark apartments, she 
ought to have been. A pretty exhibition my grandmamma 
must have made of herself! I wonder whether she ever 
insisted on people’s retiring into the ball of St. Paul’s; and 
if she did, how she got them there! ” 

“ Silence! ” proclaimed Mrs. Wilfer. “ I command 
silence! ” 

“ I have not the slightest intention of being silent, Ma,” 
returned Lavinia, coolly, “ but quite the contrary. I am not 


THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS 695 

going to be eyed as if I had come from the Boffins, and sit 
silent under it. I am not going to have George Sampson 
eyed as if he had come from the Boffins, and sit silent under it. 
If Pa thinks proper to be eyed as if he had come from the 
Boffins also, well and good. I don’t choose to. And I 
won’t!” 

Lavinia’s engineering having made this crooked opening 
at Bella, Mrs. Wilfer strode into it. 

“You rebellious spirit! You mutinous child! Tell me 
this, Lavinia. If, in violation of your mother’s sentiments, 
you had condescended to allow yourself to be patronised by 
the Boffins, and if you had come from those halls of 
slavery ” 

“ That’s mere nonsense, Ma,” said Lavinia. 

“ How! ” exclaimed Mrs. Wilfer, with sublime severity. 

“ Halls of slavery, Ma, is mere stuff and nonsense,” re- 
turned the unmoved Irrepressible. 

“ I say, presumptuous child, if you had come from the 
neighbourhood of Portland Place, bending under the yoke of 
patronage, and attended by its domestics in glittering garb 
to visit me, do you think my deep-seated feelings could have 
been expressed in looks ? ” 

“ All I think about it is,” returned Lavinia, “ that I should 
wish them expressed to the right person.” 

“ And if,” pursued her mother, “ if, making light of my 
warnings that the face of Mrs. Boffin alone was a face 
teeming with evil, you had clung to Mrs. Boffin, instead of 
to me, and had after all come home rejected by Mrs. Boffin, 
trampled under foot by Mrs. Boffin, and cast out by Mrs. 
Boffin, do you think my feelings could have been expressed 
in looks ? ” 

Lavinia was about replying to her honoured parent that 
she might as well have dispensed with her looks altogether 
then, when Bella rose and said, “ Good night, dear Ma. 
I have had a tiring day, and I’ll go to bed.” This broke up 
the agreeable party. Mr. George Sampson shortly afterwards 
took his leave, accompanied by Miss Lavinia with a candle 
as far as the hall, and without a candle as far as the garden 
gate; Mrs. Wilfer, washing her hands of the Boffins, went to 
bed after the manner of Lady Macbeth; and R. W. was left 


696 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


alone among the dilapidations of the supper table, in a 
melancholy attitude. 

But a light footstep roused him from his meditations, 
and it was Bella’s. Her pretty hair was hanging all about 
her, and she had tripped down softly, brush in hand, and 
barefoot, to say good night to him. 

“ My dear, you most unquestionably are a lovely woman,” 
said the cherub, taking up a tress in his hand. 

“ Look here, sir,” said Bella; “ when your lovely woman 
marries, you shall have that piece if you like, and she’ll make 
you a chain of it. Would you prize that remembrance of 
the dear creature? ” 

“ Yes, my precious.” 

^‘Then you shall have it if you’re good, sir. I am very, 
very sorry, dearest Pa, to have brought home all this trouble.” 

“ My pet,” returned her father, in the simplest good faith, 
“ don’t make yourself uneasy about that. It really is not 
worth mentioning, because things at home would have taken 
pretty much the same turn anyway. If your mother and 
sister don’t find one subject to get at times a little wearing 
on, they find another. We’re never out of a wearing subject, 
my dear, I assure you. I am afraid you find your old room 
with Lavvy dreadfully inconvenient, Bella ? ” 

“ No, I don’t. Pa; I don’t mind. Why don’t I mind, do 
you think. Pa ? ” 

Well, my child, you used to complain of it when it wasn’t 
such a contrast as it must be now. Upon my word, I can 
only answer, because you are so much improved.” 

“ No, Pa. Because I am so thankful and so happy! ” 

Here she choked him until her long hair made him sneeze, 
and then she laughed until she made him laugh, and then 
she choked him again, that they might not be overheard. 

Listen, sir,” said Bella. “ Your lovely woman was told 
her fortune to-night on her way home. It won’t be a large 
fortune, because if the lovely woman’s Intended gets a certain 
appointment that he hopes to get soon, she will marry on a 
hundred and fifty pounds a year. But that’s at first, and 
even if it should never be more, the lovely woman will make 
it quite enough. But that’s not all, sir. In the fortune 
there’s a certain fair man — a little man, the fortune-teller 






I. 

I 

I 

1 


i 




( 


« 


f 




THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS 


G97 


said — who, it seems, will always find himself near the lovely 
woman, and will always have kept, expressly for him, such a 
peaceful comer in the lovely woman’s little house as never 
was. Tell me the name of that man, sir.” 

“Is he a Knave in the pack of cards?” inquired the 
cherub, with a twinkle in his eyes. 

“Yes!” cried Bella, in high glee, choking him again. 
“ He’s the Knave of Wilfers! Dear Pa, the lovely woman 
means to look forward to this fortune that has been told for 
her so delightfully, and to cause it to make her a much 
better lovely woman than she ever has been yet. What the 
little fair man is expected to do, sir, is to look forward to 
it also, by saying to himself when he is in danger of being 
over-worried, ^ I see land at last!’ ” 

“ I see land at last! ” repeated her father. 

“ There’s a dear Knave of Wilfers! ” exclaimed Bella; then 
putting out her small white bare foot, “ That’s the mark, sir. 
Come to the mark. Put your boot against it. We keep to 
it together, mind! Now, sir, you may kiss the lovely woman 
before she runs away, so thankful and so happy. Oh yes, fair 
little man, so thankful and so happy! ” 


CHAPTER XVll 


A SOCIAL CHORUS 

Amazement sits enthroned upon the countenances of Mr. 
and Mrs. Alfred Lammle’s circle of acquaintance, when the 
disposal of their first-class furniture and effects (including 
a Billiard Table in capital letters), “ by auction under a bill 
of sale,” is publicly announced on a waving hearthrug in 
Sackville Street. But nobody is half so much amazed as 
Hamilton Veneering, Esquire, M.P. for Pocket-Breaches, 
who instantly begins to find out that the Lammles are the 
only people ever entered on his soul’s register who are not 
the oldest and dearest friends he has in the world. Mrs. 
Veneering, W.M.P. for Pocket-Breaches, lil^e a faithful wife, 
shares her husband’s discovery and inexpressible astonish- 
ment. Perhaps the Veneerings twain may deem the last 
unutterable feeling particularly due to their reputation, by 
reason that once upon a time some of the longer heads in 
the City are whispered to have shaken themselves, when 
Veneering’s extensive dealings and great wealth were men- 
tioned. But it is certain that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Veneer- 
ing can find words to wonder in, and it becomes necessary 
that they give to the oldest and dearest friends they have in 
the world, a wondering dinner. 

For it is by this time noticeable that, whatever befalls, the 
Veneerings must give a dinner upon it. Lady Tippins lives 
in a chronic state of invitation to dine with the Veneerings, 
and in a chronic state of inflammation arising from the 
dinners. Boots and Brewer go about in cabs, with no other 
intelligible business on earth than to beat up people to come 
and dine with the Veneerings. Veneering pervades the 
legislative lobbies, intent upon entrapping his fellow-legis- 
lators to dinner. Mrs. Veneering dined with five-and- 


A SOCIAL CHORUS 


699 


twenty bran-new faces over-night; calls upon them all 
to-day; sends them every one a dinner-card to-morrow, for 
the week after next; before that dinner is digested, calls 
upon their brothers and sisters, their sons and daughters, 
their nephews and nieces, their aunts and uncles and cousins, 
and invites them all to dinner. And still, as at first, how- 
soever the dining circle widens, it is to be observed that 
all the diners are consistent in appearing to go to the Veneer- 
ings’, not to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Veneering (which would 
seem to be the last thing in their minds), but to dine with one 
another. 

Perhaps, after all, — who knows ? — Veneering may find 
this dining, though expensive, remunerative in the sense that it 
makes champions. Mr. Podsnap, as a representative man, 
is not alone in caring very particularly for his own dignity, 
if not for that of his acquaintances, and therefore in angrily 
supporting the acquaintances who have taken out his Permit, 
lest, in their being lessened, he should be. The gold and 
silver camels, and the ice-pails, and the rest of the Veneering 
table decorations, make a brilliant show, and when I, Podsnap, 
casually remark elsewhere that I dined last Monday with a 
gorgeous caravan of camels, I find it personally offensive to 
have it hinted to me that they are broken-kneed camels, or 
camels labouring under suspicion of any sort. “ I don't dis- 
play camels myself, I am above them: I am a more solid 
man; but these camels have basked in the light of my coun- 
tenance, and how dare you, sir, insinuate to me that I have 
irradiated any but unimpeachable camels ? " 

The camels are polishing up in the Analytical’s pantry for 
the dinner of wonderment on the occasion of the Lammles 
going to pieces, and Mr. Twemlow feels a little queer on the 
sofa at his lodgings over the stable-yard in Duke Street, 
Saint James’s, in consequence of having taken two advertised 
pills at about mid-day, on the faith of the printed represen- 
tation accompanying the box (price one and a penny half- 
penny, government stamp included), that the same “ will 
be found highly salutary as a precautionary measure in con- 
nection with the pleasures of the table.” To whom, while 
sickly with the fancy of an insoluble pill sticking in his 
gullet, and also with the sensation of a deposit of warm gum 


700 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


languidly wandering within him a little lower down, a servant 
enters with an announcement that a lady wishes to speak 
with him. 

“ A lady/’ says Twemlow, pluming his ruffled feathers. 
“ Ask the favour of the lady’s name.” 

The lady’s name is Lammle. The lady will not detain 
Mr. Twemlow longer than a very few minutes. The lady is 
sure that Mr. Twemlow will do her the kindness to see her 
on being told that she particularly desires a short interview. 
The lady has no doubt whatever of Mr. Twemlow’s com- 
pliance when he hears her name. Has begged the servant to 
be particular not to mistake her name. Would have sent in 
a card, but has none. 

“ Show the lady in.” Lady shown in, comes in. 

Mr. Twemlow’s little rooms are modestly furnished, in an 
old-fashioned manner (rather like the housekeeper’s room at 
Snigsworthy Park), and would be bare of mere ornament, 
were it not for a full length engraving of the sublime Snigs- 
worth over the chimneypiece, snorting at a Corinthian 
column, with an enormous roll of paper at his feet, and a 
heavy curtain going to tumble down on his head; those 
accessories being understood to represent the noble lord as 
somehow in the act of saving his country. 

“ Pray take a seat, Mrs. Lammle.” Mrs. Lammle takes a 
seat and opens the conversation. 

“ I have no doubt, Mr. Twemlow, that you have heard of 
a reverse of fortune having befallen us. Of course you have 
heard of it, for no kind of news travels so fast — among one’s 
friends especially.” 

Mindful of the wondering dinner, Twemlow, with a little 
twinge, admits the imputation. 

Probably it will not,” says Mrs. Lammle, with a certain 
hardened manner upon her that makes Twemlow shrink, 
“ have surprised you so much as some others, after what 
passed between us at the house which is now turned out 
at windows. I have taken the liberty of calling upon you, 
Mr. Twemlow, to add a sort of postscript to what I said 
that day.” 

Mr. Twemlow’s dry and hollow cheeks become more dry 
and hollow at the prospect of some new complication. 


A SOCIAL CHORUS 


701 


Really,” says the uneasy little gentleman, really, Mrs. 
Lammle, I should take it as a favour if you could excuse 
me from any further confidence. It has ever been one of 
the objects of my life — which, unfortunately, has not had 
many objects — to be inoffensive, and to keep out of cabals 
and interferences.” 

Mrs. Lammle, by far the more observant of the two, 
scarcely finds it necessary to look at Twemlow while he 
speaks, so easily does she read him. 

‘‘ My postscript — to retain the term I have used ” — says 
Mrs. Lammle, fixing her eyes on his face, to enforce what 
she says herself — “ coincides exactly with what you say, 
Mr. Twemlow. So far from troubling you with any new 
confidence, I merely wish to remind you what the old one 
was. So far from asking you for interference, I merely wish 
to claim your strict neutrality.” 

Twemlow going on to reply, she rests her eyes again, 
knowing her ears to be quite enough for the contents of so 
weak a vessel. 

I can, I suppose,” says Twemlow, nervously, offer no 
reasonable objection to hearing anything that you do me the 
honour to wish to say to me under those heads. But if I 
may, with all possible delicacy and politeness, entreat you 
not to range beyond them, I — I beg to do so.” 

“ Sir,” says Mrs. Lammle, raising her eyes.to his face again, 
and quite daunting him with her hardened manner, “ I 
imparted to you a certain piece of knowledge, to be imparted 
again, as you thought best, to a certain person.” 

“ Which I did,” says Twemlow. 

“ x\nd for doing which, I thank you; though, indeed, I 
scarcely know why I turned traitress to my husband in the 
matter, for the girl is a poor little fool. I was a poor little 
fool once myself; I can find no better reason.” Seeing the 
effect she produces on him by her indifferent laugh and cold 
look, she keeps her eyes upon him as she proceeds. “ Mr. 
Twemlow, if you should chance to see my husband, or to see 
me, or to see both of us, in the favour or confidence of any 
one else — whether of our common acquaintance or not, is of 
no consequence — you have no right to use against us the 
knowledge I entrusted you with, for one special purpose 


702 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


which has been accomplished. This is what I came to say. 
It is not a stipulation ; to a gentleman it is simply a reminder.” 

Twemlow sits murmuring to himself with his hand to his 
forehead. 

“ It is so plain a case,” Mrs. Lammle goes on, “ as between 
me (from the first relying on your honour) and you, that I 
will not waste another word upon it.” She looks steadily at 
Mr. Twemlow, until, wdth a shrug, he makes her a little 
one-sided bow, as though saying, “ Yes, I think you have a 
right to rely upon me,” and then she moistens her lips, and 
shows a sense of relief. 

“ I trust I have kept the promise I made through your 
servant, that I would detain you a very few minutes. I 
need trouble you no longer, Mr. Twemlow.” 

“ Stay! ” says Twemlow, rising as she rises. “ Pardon me 
a moment. I should never have sought you out, madam, to 
say what I am going to say, but since you have sought me 
out and are here, I will throw it off my mind. Was it quite 
consistent, in candour, with our taking that resolution against 
Mr. Fledgeby, that you should afterwards address Mr. 
Fledgeby as your dear and confidential friend, and entreat a 
favour of Mr. Fledgeby? Always supposing that you did; 1 
assert no knowledge of my own on the subject; it has been 
represented to me that you did.” 

“ Then he told you ? ” retorts Mrs. Lammle, who again has 
saved her eyes while listening, and uses them with strong 
effect while speaking. 

“ Yes.” 

“ It is strange that he should have told you the truth,” 
says Mrs. Lammle, seriously pondering. “ Pray where did 
a circumstance so very extraordinary happen ? ” 

Twemlow hesitates. He is shorter than the lady as well 
as weaker, and as she stands above him with her hardened 
manner, and her well-used eyes, he finds himself at such a 
disadvantage that he would like to be of the opposite sex. 

“ May I ask where it happened, Mr. Twemlow ? In strict 
confidence ? ” 

I must confess,” ‘says the mild little gentleman, coming 
to his answer by degrees, “ that I felt some compunctions 
when Mr. Fledgeby mentioned it. I must admit that I 


A SOCIAL CHORUS 


703 


could not regard myself in an agreeable light. More par- 
ticularly, as Mr. Fledgeby did, with great civility, which I 
could not feel that I deserved from him, render me the same 
service that you had entreated him to render you.” 

It is a part of the true nobility of the poor gentleman’s 
soul to say this last sentence. Otherwise,” he has reflected, 
“ I shall assume the superior position of having no difficulties 
of my own, while I know of hers. Which would be mean, 
very mean.” 

Was Mr. Fledgeby’s advocacy as effectual in your case as 
in ours?” Mrs. Lammle demands. 

“ As meffectual.” 

“ Can you make up your mind to tell me where you saw 
Mr. Fledgeby, Mr. Twemlow ? ” 

“ I beg your pardon. I fully intended to have done so. 
The reservation was not intentional. I encountered Mr. 
Fledgeby, quite by accident, on the spot. — By the expression, 
on the spot, I mean at Mr. Riah’s in Saint Mary Axe.” 

“ Have you the misfortune to be in Mr. Riah’s hands 
then ? ” 

“ Unfortunately, madam,” returns Twemlow, “ the one 
money-obligation to which I stand committed, the one debt 
of my life (but it is a just debt; pray observe that I don’t 
dispute it), has fallen into Mr. Riah’s hands.” 

Mr. Twemlow,” says Mrs. Lammle, fixing his eyes with 
hers: which he wouM prevent her doing if he could, but he 
can’t; “ it has fallen into Mr. Fledgeby’s hands. Mr. Riah 
is his mask. It has fallen into Mr. Fledgeby’s hands. Let 
me tell you that, for your guidance. The information may 
be of use to you, if only to prevent your credulity, in judg- 
ing another man’s truthfulness by your own, from being 
imposed upon.” 

“ Impossible!” cries Twemlow, standing aghast. “ How 
do you know it ? ” 

‘‘ I scarcely know how I know it. The whole train of 
circumstances seemed to take fire at once, and show it to me.” 

Oh! Then you have no proof.” 

It is very strange,” says Mrs. Lammle, coldly and boldly, 
and with some disdain, how like men are to one another in 
some things, though their characters are as different as can 


704 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


be! No two men can have less aflSnity between them, one 
would say, than Mr. Twemlow ahd my husband. Yet my 
husband replies to me, ‘ You have no proof,’ and Mr. Twem- 
low replies to me with the very same words! ” 

“ But why, madam? ” Twemlow ventures gently to argue. 

Consider why the veiy same words ? Because they state 
the fact. Because you have no proof.” 

“ Men are very wise in their way,” quoth Mrs. Lammie, 
glancing haughtily at the Snigsworth portrait, and shaking 
out her dress before departing; “ but they have wisdom to 
learn. My husband, who is not over- confiding, ingenuous, 
or inexperienced, sees this plain thing no more than Mr. 
Twemlow does — because there is no proof. Yet I believe 
five women out of six, in my place, would see it as clearly 
as I do. However, I will never rest (if only in remembrance 
of Mr. Fledgeby’s having kissed my hand) until my husband 
does see it. And you will do well for yourself to see it from 
this time forth, Mr. Twemlow, though I can give you no 
proof.” 

As she moves towards the door, Mr. Twemlow, attending 
on her, expresses his soothing hope that the condition of 
Mr. Lammle’s affairs is not irretrievable. 

“ I don’t know,” Mrs. Lammie answers, stopping, and 
sketching out the pattern of the paper on the wall with the 
point of her parasol; “ it depends. There may be an open- 
ing for him dawning now, or there may be none. We shall 
soon find out. If none, we are bankrupt here, and must go 
abroad, I suppose.” 

Mr. Twemlow, in his good-natured desire to make the best 
of it, remarlis that there are pleasant lives abroad. 

“Yes,” returns Mrs. Lammie, still sketching on the wall; 
“ but I doubt whether billiard-playing, card-playing, and so 
forth, for the means to live under suspicion at a dirty table- 
d’h6te, is one of them.” 

It is much for Mr. Lammie, Twemlow politely intimates 
(though greatly shocked) to have one always beside him who 
is attached to him in all his fortunes, and whose restraining 
influence will prevent him from courses that would be dis- 
creditable and ruinous. As he says it, Mrs. Lammie leaves 
off sketching, and looks at him. 


A SOCIAL CHORUS 


705 


“ Restraining influence, Mr. Twemlow ? We must eat and 
drink, and dress, and have a roof over our heads. Always 
beside him and attached in all his fortunes? Not much to 
boast of in that; what can a woman at my age do? My 
husband and I deceived one another when we married; we 
must bear the consequences of the deception — that is to say, 
bear one another, and bear the burden of scheming together 
for to-day’s dinner and to-morrow’s breakfast — till death 
divorces us.” 

With those words, she walks out into Duke Street, Saint 
James’s. Mr. Twemlow returning to his sofa, lays down his 
aching head on its slippery little horse-hair bolster, with a 
strong internal conviction that a painful interview is not 
the kind of thing to be taken after the dinner pills which 
are so highly salutary in connection with the pleasures of the 
table. 

But six o’clock in the evening finds the worthy little gentle- 
man getting better, and also getting himself into his obsolete 
little silk stockings and pumps, for the wondering dinner at 
the Veneerings’. And seven o’clock in the evening finds him 
trotting out into Duke Street to trot to the corner and save 
a sixpence in coach-hire. 

Tippins the divine has dined herself into such a condition 
by this time, that a morbid mind might desire her, for a 
blessed change, to sup at last, and turn into bed. Such a 
mind has Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, whom Twemlow finds con- 
templating Tippins with the moodiest of visages, while that 
playful creature rallies him on being so long overdue at the 
woolsack. Skittish is Tippins with Mortimer Lightwood too, 
and has raps to give him with her fan for having been best 
man at the nuptials of these deceiving what’s-their-names who 
have gone to pieces. Though, indeed, the fan is generally 
lively, and taps away at the men in all directions, with some- 
thing of a grisly sound suggestive of the clattering of Lady 
Tippins’s bones. 

A new race of intimate friends has sprung up at Veneering’s 
since he went into Parliament for the public good, to whom 
Mrs. Veneering is very attentive. These friends, like astro- 
nomical distances, are only to be spoken of in the very 
largest figures. Boots says that one of them is a Contractor 


706 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


who (it has been calculated) gives employment, directly and 
indirectly, to five hundred thousand men. Brewer says that 
another of them is a Chairman, in such request at so many 
Boards, so far apart, that he never travels less by railw^ay 
than three thousand miles a week. Buffer says that another 
of them hadn’t a sixpence eighteen months ago, and, through 
the brilliancy of his genius in getting those shares issued at 
eighty-five, and buying them all up with no money and selling 
them at par for cash, has now three hundred and seventy-five 
thousand pounds — Buffer particularly insisting on the odd 
seventy-five, and declining to take a farthing less. With 
Buffer, Boots, and Brewer, Lady Tippins is eminently 
facetious on the subject of these Fathers of the Scrip-Church: 
surveying them through her eye-glass, and inquiring whether 
Boots and Brewer and Buffer think they wall make her for- 
tune if she makes love to them? with other pleasantries of 
that nature. Veneering, in his different way, is much occupied 
with the Fathers too, piously retiring with them into the con- 
servatory, from which retreat the word “ Committee ” is 
occasionally heard, and where the Fathers instruct Veneering 
how he must leave the valley of the piano on his left, take the 
level of the mantelpiece, cross by an open cutting at the cande- 
labra, seize the carrying traffic at the console, and cut up the 
opposition root and branch at the window curtains. 

Mr. and Mrs. Podsnap are of the company, and the Fathers 
descry in Mrs. Podsnap a fine woman. She is consigned to 
a Father — Boots’s Father, who employs five hundred 
thousand men — and is brought to anchor on Veneering’s 
left; thus affording opportunity to the sportive Tippins on 
his right (he, as usual, being mere vacant space), to entreat to 
be told something about those loves of Navvies, and whether 
they do really live on raw beefsteaks, and drink porter out of 
their barrows. But, in spite of such little skirmishes it is felt 
that this was to be a wondering dinner, and that the wonder- 
ing must not be neglected. Accordingly, Brewer, as the man 
who has the greatest reputation to sustain, becomes the inter- 
preter of the general instinct. 

“ I took,” says Brewer in a favourable pause, a cab this 
morning, and I rattled off to that Sale.” 

Boots (devoured by envy) says, “ So did I.” 


A SOCIAL CHORUS 707 

Buffer says, “So did I;” but can find nobody to care 
whether he did or not. 

“And what was it like? ” inquires Veneering. 

“ I assure you,’^ replies Brewer, looking about for anybody 
else to address his answer to, and giving the preference to 
Lightwood; “ I assure you, the things were going for a song. 
Handsome things enough, but fetching nothing.” 

“ So I heard this afternoon,” says Lightwood. 

Brewer begs to know now, would it be fair to ask a pro- 
fessional man how — on — earth — these — people — ever 
— did — come — to — such — a — total smash ? (Brewer’s 
divisions being for emphasis.) 

Lightwood replies that he was consulted certainly, but 
could give no opinion which would pay off the Bill of Sale, 
and therefore violates no confidence in supposing that it 
came of their living beyond their means. 

“But how,” says Veneering, “ can people do that! ” 

Hah! That is felt on all hands to be a shot in the bull’s- 
eye. How CAN people do that! The Analytical Chemist 
going round with champagne, looks very much as if he could 
give them a pretty good idea how people did that, if he had 
a mind. 

“ How,” says Mrs. Veneering, laying down her fork to 
press her aquiline hands together at the tips of the fingers, 
and addressing the Father who travels the three thousand 
miles per week; “ how a mother can look at her baby, and 
know that she lives beyond her husband’s means, I cannot 
imagine.” 

Eugene suggests that Mrs. Lammle, not being a mother, 
had no baby to look at. 

“ True,” says Mrs. Veneering, “ but the principle is the 
same.” 

Boots is clear that the principle is the same. So is Buffer. 
It is the unfortunate destiny of Buffer to damage a cause by 
espousing it. The rest of the company have meekly yielded 
to the proposition that the principle is the same, until Buffer 
says it is; when instantly a general murmur arises that the 
principle is not the same. 

“ But I don’t understand,” says the Father of the three 
hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds, “ — if. these 


708 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


people spoken of, occupied the position of being in society — 
they were in society ? 

Veneering is bound to confess that they dined here, and 
vvere even married from here. 

“Then I don’t understand,” pursues the Father, “how 
even their living beyond their means could bring them to 
what has been termed a total smash. Because there is 
always such a thing as an adjustment of affairs, in the case 
of people of any standing at all.” 

Eugene (who would seem to be in a gloomy state of sug- 
gestiveness) suggests, “ Suppose you have no means and live 
beyond them ? ” 

This is too insolvent a state of things for the Father to 
entertain. It is too insolvent a state of things for any one 
with any self-respect to entertain, and is universally scouted. 
But it is so amazing how any people can have come to a 
total smash, that everybody feels bound to account for 
it specially. One of the Fathers says, “ Gaming table.” 
Another of the Fathers says, “ Speculated without knowing 
that speculation is a science.” Boots says, “ Horses.” Lady 
Tippins says to her fan, “Two establishments.” Mr. Pod- 
snap saying nothing, is referred to for his opinion; which 
he delivers as follows; much flushed and extremely 
angry: 

“ Don’t ask me. . I desire to take no part in the discussion 
of these people’s affairs. I abhor the subject. It is an odious 
subject, an offensive subject, a subject that makes me sick, 

and I ” And with his favourite right-arm flourish which 

sweeps away everything and settles it for ever, Mr. Podsnap 
sweeps these inconveniently unexplainable wretches who 
have lived beyond their means and gone to total smash off 
the face of the universe. 

Eugene, leaning back in his chair, is observing Mr. Pod- 
snap with an irreverent face, and may be about to offer a new 
suggestion, when the Analytical is beheld in collision with the 
Coachman; the Coachman manifesting a purpose of coming 
at the company with a silver salver, as though intent upon 
making a collection for his wife and family; the Analytical 
cutting him off at the sideboard. The superior stateliness, 
if not the superior generalship, of the Analytical, prevails 


A SOCIAL CHORUS 709 

over a man who is as nothing off the box; and the Coachman, 
yielding up his salver, retires defeated. 

Then the Analytical, perusing a scrap of paper lying on 
the salver, with the air of a literary Censor, adjusts it, takes 
his time about going to the table with it, and presents it to 
Mr. Eugene Wrayburn. Whereupon the pleasant Tippins 
says aloud, “ The Lord Chancellor has resigned! ” 

With distracting coolness and slowness — for he knows the 
curiosity of the Charmer to be always devouring Eugene 
makes a pretence of getting out an eye-glass, polishing it, 
and reading the paper with difficulty, long after he has seen 
what is written on it. What is written on it in wet ink, is : 

“ Young Blight.” 

“ Waiting? ” says Eugene over his shoulder, in confidence 
with the Analytical. 

“ Waiting,” returns the Analytical, in responsive confi- 
dence. 

Eugene looks Excuse me,” towards Mrs. Veneering, goes 
out, and finds Young Blight, Mortimer’s clerk, at the hall- 
door. 

“You told me to bring him, sir, to wherever you was, if 
he come while you was out and I was in,” says that discreet 
young gentleman, standing on tiptoe to whisper; “ and I’ve 
brought him.” 

“ Sharp boy. Where is he? ” asks Eugene. 

“ He’s in a cab, sir, at the door. I thought it best not to 
show him, you see, if it could be helped; for he’s a-shaking 
all over, like ” — Blight’s simile is perhaps inspired by the 
surrounding dishes of sweets — “ like Glue Monge.” 

“ Sharp boy again,” returns Eugene. “ I’ll go to him.” 

Goes out straightway, and, leisurely leaning his arms on 
the open window of a cab in waiting, looks in at Mr. Dolls: 
who has brought his own atmosphere with him, and would 
seem from its odour to have brought it, for convenience of 
carriage, in a rum-cask. 

“ Now, Dolls, wake up! ” 

“ Mist Wrayburn ? Drection! Fifteen shillings ! ” 

After carefully reading the dingy scrap of paper handed to 
him, and as carefully tucking it into his waistcoat pocket, 
Eugene tells out the money; beginning incautiously by tell- 


710 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


ing the first shilling into Mr. Dolls’s hand, which instantly 
jerks it out of window; and ending by telling the fifteen 
shillings on the seat. 

Give him a ride back to Charing Cross, sharp boy, and 
there get rid of him.” 

Returning to the dining-room, and pausing for an instant 
behind the screen at the door, Eugene overhears, above the 
hum and clatter, the fair Tippins saying: “ I am dying to 
ask him what he was called out for! ” 

“ Are you? ” mutters Eugene; “ then perhaps if you can’t 
ask him, you’ll die. So I’ll be a benefactor to society, and 
go. A stroll and a cigar, and I can think this over. Think 
this over.” Thus, with a thoughtful face, he finds his hat 
and cloak, unseen of the Analytical, and goes his way. 


END OF BOOK III 


BOOK THE FOURTH 
A TURNING 


CHAPTER I 

SETTING TRAPS 

Plashwater Weir Mill Lock looked tranquil and pretty on 
an evening in the summer time. A soft air stirred the leaves 
of the fresh green trees, and passed like a smooth shadow 
over the river, and like a smoother shadow over the yielding 
grass. The voice of the falling water, like the voices of the 
sea and the wdnd, was an outer memory to a contemplative 
listener; but not particularly so to Mr. Riderhood, who sat 
on one of the blunt wooden levers of his lock-gates, dozing. 
Wine must be got into a butt by some agency before it can 
be drawn out: and the wine of sentiment never having been 
got into Mr. Riderhood by any agency, nothing in nature 
tapped him. 

As the Rogue sat, ever and again nodding himself off his 
balance, his recovery was always attended by an angry 
stare and growl, as if, in the absence of any one else, he 
had aggressive inclinations towards himself. In one of 
these starts the cry of “Lock, ho! Lock!’' prevented his 
relapse into a doze. Shaking himself as he got up, like the 
surly brute he was, he gave his growl a responsive twist 
at the end, and turned his face down-stream to see who 
hailed. 

It was an amateur sculler, well up to his work though 
taking it easily, in so light a boat that the Rogue remarked; 
“A little less on you, and you’d a’most.ha’ been a Wager- 
but; ” then went to work at his windlass handles and sluices, 


712 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


to let the sculler in. As the latter stood in his boat, holding 
on by the boat-hook to the woodwork at the lock-side, waiting 
for the gates to open. Rogue Riderhood recognised his 
“ Toother governor,^^ Mr. Eugene Wrayburn; who was, 
however, too indifferent or too much engaged to recognise 
him. 

The creaking lock-gates opened slowly, and the light boat 
passed in as soon as there was room enough, and the creaking 
lock-gates closed upon it, and it floated low down in the 
dock between the two sets of gates, until the water should 
rise and the second gates should open and let it out. When 
Riderhood had run to his second windlass and turned it, 
and while he leaned against the lever of that gate to help 
it to swing open presently, he noticed, lying to rest under 
the green hedge by the towing-path astern of the Lock, a 
Bargeman. 

The water rose and rose as the sluice poured in, dispersing 
the scum w'hich had formed behind the lumbering gates, and 
sending the boat up, so that the sculler gradually rose like 
an apparition against the light from the bargeman’s point 
of view. Riderhood observed that the bargeman rose too, 
leaning on his arm, and seemed to have his eyes fastened on 
the rising figure. 

But there was the toll to be taken, as the gates were now 
complaining and opening. The T’other governor tossed 
it ashore, twisted in a piece of paper, and as he did so, knew 
his man. 

“ Ay, ay ? It’s you, is it, honest friend ? ” said Eugene, 
seating himself preparatory to resuming his sculls. “You 
got the place then ? ” 

“ I got the place, and no thanks to you for it, nor yet 
none to Lawyer Lightwood,” gruffly answered Riderhood. 

“ We saved our recommendation, honest fellow,” said 
Eugene, “ for the next candidate — the one who will offer 
himself when you are transported or hanged. Don’t be long 
about it; will you be so good? ” 

So imperturbable was the air with which he gravely bent 
to his work that Riderhood remained staring at him, without 
having found a retort, until he had rowed past a line of 
wooden objects by the weir, which showed like huge teetotums 


SETTING TRAPS 


713 


standing at rest in the water, and was almost hidden by the 
drooping boughs on the left bank, as he rowed away, keeping 
out of the opposing current. It being then too late to retort 
with any effect — if that could ever have been done — the 
honest man confined himself to cursing and growling in a 
grim under-tone. Having then got his gates shut, he crossed 
back by his plank Lock-bridge to the towing-path side of 
the river. 

If, in so doing, he took another glance at the bargeman, he 
did it by stealth. He cast himself on the grass by the Lock 
side, in an indolent way, with his back in that direction, and, 
having gathered a few blades, fell to chewing them. The dip 
of Eugene Wrayburn’s sculls had become hardly audible in 
his ears when the bargeman passed him, putting the utmost 
width that he could between them, and keeping under the 
hedge. Then Riderhood sat up and took a long look at his 
figure, and then cried: “Hi — i — i! Lock, ho! Lock! 
Plashwater Weir Mill Lock!^’ 

The bargeman stopped, and looked back. 

“ Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, T'otherest gov — er — nor — or 
— or — or! ” cried Mr. Riderhood, with his hands to his 
mouth. 

The bargeman turned back. Approaching nearer and 
nearer, the bargeman became Bradley Headstone, in rough 
water-side second-hand clothing. 

“ Wish I may die,” said Riderhood, smiting his right leg, 
and laughing, as he sat on the grass, “ if you ain’t ha’ been 
a-imitating me, T’otherest governor! Never thought myself 
so good-looking afore! ” 

Truly, Bradley Headstone had taken careful note of the 
honest man’s dress in the course of that night-walk they had 
had together. He must have committed it to memory, and 
slowly got it by heart. It was exactly reproduced in the 
dress he now wore. And whereas, in his own schoolmaster 
clothes, he usually looked as if they were the clothes of some 
other man, he now looked, in the clothes of some other man, 
or men, as if they were his own. 

“ This your I..ock? ” said Bradley, whose surprise had a 
genuine air; “ they told me, where I last inquired, it was 
the third I should come to. This is only the second.” 


714 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ It’s my belief, governor,” returned Riderhood, with a 
wink and shake of his head, “ that you’ve dropped one in 
your counting. It ain’t Locks as you\e been giving your 
mind to. No, no! ” 

As he expressively jerked his pointing finger in the direc- 
tion the boat had taken, a flush of impatience mounted into 
Bradley’s face, and he looked anxiously up the river. 

“ It ain’t Locks as you’ve been a-reckoning up,” said 
Riderhood, when the schoolmaster’s eyes came back again. 
“ No, no!” 

“ What other calculations do you suppose I have been 
occupied with ? Mathematics ? ” 

I never heerd it called that. It’s a long word for it. 
Hows’ever, p’raps you call it so,” said Riderhood, stubbornly 
chewing his grass. 

“It. What?” 

“ I’ll say them, instead of it, if you like,” was the coolly 
growled reply. “ It’s safer talk too.” 

“ What do you mean that I should understand by them ? ” 

“ Spites, affronts, offences giv’ and took, deadly aggrawa- 
tions, such like,” answered Riderhood. 

Do what Bradley Headstone would, he could not keep 
that former flush of impatience out of his face, or so master 
his eyes as to prevent their again looking anxiously up the 
river. 

“ Ha ha! Don’t be afeerd, T’otherest,” said Riderhood. 
“ The T’other’s got to make way agin the stream, and he 
takes it easy. You can soon come up with him. But wot’s 
the good of saying that to you! You know how fur you 
could have outwalked him betwixt anywheres about where 
tie lost the tide — say Richmond — and this, if you had had 
a mind to it.” 

“ You think I have been following him? ” said Bradley. 

“ I KNOW you have,” said Riderhood. 

“Well! I have, I have,” Bradley admitted. “But,” with 
another anxious look up the river, “ he may land.” 

“Easy you! He won’t be lost if he does land,” said 
Riderhood. “ He must leave his boat behind him. He 
can’t make a bundle or a parcel on it, and carry it ashore 
with him under his arm.” 


SETTING TRAPS 


715 


' He was speaking to you just now,” said Bradley, kneeling 
on one knee on the grass beside the Lock-keeper. What 
did he say ? ” 

“ Cheek,” said Riderhood. 

“What?” 

“ Cheek,” repeated Riderhood, with an angry oath; “ cheek 
is what he said. He can’t say nothing but cheek. I’d ha’ 
liked to plump down aboard of him, neck and crop, with 
a heavy jump, and sunk him.” 

Bradley turned away his haggard face for a few moments, 
and then said, tearing up a tuft of grass : 

“ Damn him! ” 

“ Hooroar! ” cried Riderhood. “ Does you credit. Hoo- 
roar! I cry chorus to the T’otherest.” 

“ What turn,” said Bradley, with an effort at self-repression 
that forced him to wipe his face, “ did his insolence take 
to-day ? ” 

“ It took the turn,” answered Riderhood, with sullen 
ferocity, “ of hoping as I was getting ready to be hanged.” 

“ Let him look to that,” cried Bradley. “ Let him look to 
that! It will be bad for him when men he has injured, and 
at whom he has jeered, are thinking of getting hanged. Let 
him get ready for his fate, when that comes about. There 
was more meaning in what he said than he knew of, or he 
wouldn’t have had brains enough to say it. Let him look to 
it; let him look to it! When men he has wronged, and on 
whom he has bestowed his insolence, are getting ready to be 
hanged, there is a death-bell ringing. And not for them.” 

Riderhood, looking fixedly at him, gradually arose from 
his recumbent posture while the schoolmaster said these 
words with the utmost concentration of rage and hatred. 
So, when the words were all spoken, he too kneeled on one 
knee on the grass, and the two men looked at one another. 

“ Oh! ” said Riderhood, very deliberately spitting out the 
grass he had been chewing. “ Then I make out, T’otherest, 
as he is a-going to her ? ” 

“ He left London,” answered Bradley, “ yesterday. I have 
hardly a doubt, this time, that at last he is going to her.” 

“ You ain’t sure, then ? ” 

“ I am as sure here,” said Bradley, with a clutch at the 


716 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


breast of his coarse shirt, “ as if it was written there; ” with 
a blow or a stab at the sky. 

“Ah! But judging from the looks on you,” retorted 
Riderhood, completely ridding himself of his grass, and 
drawing his sleeve across his mouth, “ j^ou’ve made ekally 
sirre afore, and have got disapinted. It has told upon you.” 

“ Listen,” said Bradley, in a low voice, bending forward to 
lay his hand upon the Lock-keeper's shoulder. “ These are 
my holidays.” 

“Are they, by George!” muttered Riderhood, with his 
eyes on the passion-wasted face. “ Your working-days must 
be stiff 'uns, if these is your holidays.” 

“ And I have never left him,” pursued Bradley, waving 
the interruption aside with an impatient hand, “ since they 
began. And I never will leave him now, till I have seen 
him with her.” 

“And when you have seen him with her?” said Rider- 
hood. 

“ — ril come back to you.” 

Riderhood stiffened the knee on which he had been resting, 
got up, and looked gloomily at his new friend. After a few 
moments they walked side by side in the direction the boat 
had taken, as if by tacit consent; Bradley pressing forward, 
and Riderhood holding back; Bradley getting out his neat 
prim purse into his hand (a present made him by penny 
subscription among his pupils), and Riderhood unfolding his 
arms to smear his coat-cuff across his mouth with a thought- 
ful air. 

“ I have a pound for you,” said Bradley. 

“ You’ve two,” said Riderhood. 

Bradley held a sovereign between his fingers. Slouching 
at his side with his eyes upon the towing-path, Riderhood 
held his left hand open, with a certain slight drawing action 
towards himself. Bradley dipped in his purse for another 
sovereign, and two chinked in Riderhood’s hand, the drawing 
action of which, })romptly strengthening, drew them home to 
his pocket. 

“ Now, I must follow him,” said Bradley Headstone. “ He 
takes this river-road — the fool! — to confuse observation, or 
divert attention, if not solely to baffle me. But he must 


SETTING TRAPS 


717 


have the power of making himself invisible before he can 
shake Me off/’ 

Riderhood stopped. “ If you don’t get disapinted agin, 
T’otherest, maybe you’ll put up at the Lock-house when 
you come back ? ” 

“ I will.” 

Riderhood nodded, and the figure of the bargeman went 
its way along the soft turf by the side of the towing-path, 
keeping, near the hedge and moving quickly. They had 
turned a point from which a long stretch of river was visible. 
A stranger to the scene might have been certain that here 
and there along the line of hedge a figure stood, watching 
the bargeman, and waiting for him to come up. So he him- 
self had often believed at first, until his eyes became used to 
the posts, bearing the dagger that slew Wat Tyler, in the 
City of London shield. 

Within Mr. Riderhood’s knowledge all daggers were as 
one. Even to Bradley Headstone, who could have told to 
the letter without book all about Wat Tyler, Lord Mayor 
Walworth, and the King, that it is dutiful for youth to know, 
there was but one subject living in the world for every sharp 
destructive instrument that summer evening. So Riderhood 
looking after him as he went, and he with his furtive hand 
laid upon the dagger as he passed it, and his eyes upon the 
boat, were much upon a par. 

The boat went on, under the arching trees, and over their 
tranquil shadows in the water. The bargeman, skulking on 
the oppbsite bank of the stream, went on after it. Sparkles 
of light showed Riderhood when and where the rower dipped 
his blades, until, even as he stood idly watching, the sun 
went down and the landscape was dyed red. And then the 
red had the appearance of fading out of it and mounting up 
to Heaven, as we say that blood, guiltily shed, does 

Turning back towards his Lock (he had not gone out of 
view of it), the Rogue pondered as deeply as it was within 
the contracted power of such a fellow to do. ‘‘ Why did 
he copy my clothes? He could have looked like what he 
wanted to look like, without that.” This was the subject^ 
matter in his thoughts; in which, too, there came lumbering 
up, by times, like any half-floating and half-sinking rubbish 


718 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


in the river, the question, Was it done by accident? The 
setting of a trap for finding out whether it w^as accidentally 
done, soon superseded, as a practical piece of cunning, the 
abstruser inquiry w^hy otherwise it was done. And he 
devised a means. 

Rogue Riderhood went into his Lock-house, and brought 
forth, into the now sober gray light, his chest of clothes. 
Sitting on the grass beside it, he turned out, one by one, the 
(irticles it contained, until he came to a conspicuous bright- 
red neckerchief stained black here and there by wear. It 
arrested his attention, and he sat pausing over it, until he 
took off the rusty colourless wisp that he wore round his 
throat, and substituted the red neckerchief, leaving the long 
ends flowing. “Now,’^ said the Rogue, “ if arter he sees me 
in this neckhankecher, I see him in a sim’lar neckhankecher, 
it won’t be accident! ” Elated by his device, he carried his 
chest in again and went to supper. 

“ Lock ho! Lock!” It was a light night, and a barge 
coming down summoned him out of a long doze. In due 
course he had let the barge through and was alone again, 
looking to the closing of his gates, when Bradley Head- 
stone appeared before him, standing on the brink of the Lock. 

“ Halloa! ” said Riderhood. “ Back a’ ready, T’otherest ? ” 

“ He has put up for the night, at an Angler’s Inn,” was 
the fatigued and hoarse reply. “ He goes on, up the river, 
at six in the morning. I have come back for a couple of 
hours’ rest.” 

“ You want ’em,” said Riderhood, making towards the 
schoolmaster by his plank bridge. 

“ I don’t want them,” returned Bradley, irritably, because 
I would rather not have them, but would much prefer to 
follow him all night. However, if he won’t lead, I can’t 
follow. I have been waiting about, until I could discover, 
for a certainty, at what time he starts; if I couldn’t have 
made sure of it, I should have stayed there. — This would be 
a bad pit for a man to be flung into with his hands tied. 
These slippery smooth walls would give him no chance. 
And I suppose those gates would suck him down ? ” 

‘‘ Suck him down, or swaller him up, he wouldn’t get 
out,” said Riderhood. “ Not even if his hands wam’t tied, 


SETTING TRAPS 719 

he wouldn’t. Shut him in at both ends, and I’d give him a 
pint o’ old ale ever to come up to me standing here.” 

Bradley looked down wdth a ghastly relish. You run 
about the brink, and run across it, in this uncertain light, on 
a few inches’ width of rotten wood,” said he. “I wonder 
you have no thought of being drowned.” 

I can’t be!” said Riderhood. 

“ You can’t be drowned ? ” 

No! ” said Riderhood, shaking his head with an air of 
thorough conviction, ‘‘ it’s well known. 1 have been brought 
out o’ drowning, and I can’t be drowned. I wouldn’t have 
that there busted B’lowbridger aware on it, or her people 
might make it tell agin the damages I mean to get. But it’s 
well known to water-side characters like myself, that him as 
has been brought out o’ drowning can never be drowned.” 

Bradley smiled sourly at the ignorance he would have 
corrected in one of his pupils, and continued to look down 
into the water, as if the place had a gloomy fascination for 
him. 

You seem to like it,” said Riderhood. 

He took no notice, but stood looking down, as if he had 
not heard the words. There was a very dark expression on 
his face; an expression that the Rogue found it hard to 
understand. It was fierce, and full of purpose; but the 
purpose might have been as much against himself as against 
another. If he had stepped back for a spring, taken a leap, 
and thrown himself in, it would have been no surprising 
sequel to the look. Perhaps his troubled soul, set upon 
some violence, did hover for the moment between that vio- 
lence and another. 

Didn’t you say,” asked Riderhood, after watching him 
for a while with a sidelong glance, “ as you had come back 
for a couple o’ hours’ rest ? ” But even then he had to jog 
him with his elbow before he answered. 

‘^Eh? Yes.” 

‘‘ Hadn’t you better come in and take your couple o’ hours’ 
rest?” 

Thank you. Yes.” 

With the look of one just awakened, he followed Riderhood 
into the Lock-house, where the latter produced from a cup- 


720 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


board some cold salt beef, and half a loaf, some gin in a bottle, 
and some water in a jug. The last he brought in, cool and 
dripping, from the river. 

“ There, T’otherest,” said Riderhood, stooping over him to 
put it on the table. “ You’d better take a bite and a sup, 
afore you takes your snooze.” The dragging ends of the red 
neckerchief caught the schoolmaster’s eyes. Riderhood saw 
him look at it. 

“Oh!” thought that worthy. “You’re a-taking notice, 
are you? Come! You shall have a good squint at it then.” 
With which reflection he sat down on the other side of the 
table, threw open his vest, and made a pretence of re-tying 
the neckerchief with much deliberation. 

Bradley ate and drank. As he sat at his platter and mug, 
Riderhood saw him, again and again, steal a look at the 
neckerchief, as if he were correcting his slow observation and 
prompting his sluggish memory. “ When you’re ready for 
your snooze,” said the honest creature, “ chuck yourself on 
my bed in the comer, T’otherest. Itdl be broad day afore 
three. I’ll call you early.” 

“ I shall require no calling,” answered Bradley. And soon 
afterwards, divesting himself only of his shoes and coat, laid 
himself down. 

Riderhood, leaning back in his wooden arm-chair with his 
arms folded on his breast, looked at him lying wdth his right 
hand clenched in his sleep and his teeth set, until a film 
came over his own sight, and he slept too. He awoke to 
find that it was daylight, and that his visitor was already 
astir, and going out to the river-side to cool his head : — 
“ Though I’m blest,” muttered Riderhood at the Lock-house 
door, looking after him, “ if I think there’s water enough 
in all the Thames to do that for you!” Within five 
minutes he had taken his departure, and was passing on 
into the calm distance as he had passed yesterday. Rider- 
hood knew when a fish leaped, by his starting and glancing 
round. 

‘‘Lock ho! Lock!” at intervals all day, and “ Lock ho! 
Lock! ” thrice in the ensuing night, but no return of Bradley. 
The second day was sultry and oppressive. In the afternoon, 
a thunderstorm came up, and had but newly broken into a 


SETTING TRAPS 721 

furious sweep of rain when he rushed in at the door, like the 
storm itself. 

“ You've seen him with her I " exclaimed Riderhood, start- 
ing up. 

“ I have." 

“ Where?" 

“At his journey’s end. His boat’s hauled up for three 
days. I heard diim give the order. Then, I saw him wait 
for her and meet her. I saw them ’’ — he stopped as though 
he were suffocating, and began again — “I saw them walking 
side by side, last night." 

“ What did you do ? ’’ 

“ Nothing." 

“ What are you going to do? ’’ 

He dropped into a chair, and laughed. Immediately after- 
wards, a great spirt of blood burst from his nose. 

“How does that happen?" asked Riderhood. 

“ I don’t know. I can’t keep it back. It has happened 
twice — three times — four times — I don’t know how ma'ny 
times — since last night. I taste it, smell it, see it, it chokes 
me, and then it breaks out like this." 

He went iato the pelting rain again with his head bare, 
and, bending low over the river, and scooping up the water 
with his two hands, washed the blood away. All beyond 
his figure, as Riderhood looked from the door, was a vast 
dark curtain in solemn movement towards one quarter of 
the heavens. He raised his head and came back, wet from 
head to foot, but with the lower part of his sleeves, where he 
had dipped into the river, streaming water. 

“ Your face is like a ghost’s," said Riderhood. 

“ Did you ever see a ghost ? ’’ 'svas the sullen retort. 

“ I mean to say, you’re quite wore out." 

“ That may well be. I have had no rest since I left here. 
I don’t remember that I have so much as sat down since I 
left here." 

“ Lie down now, then," said Riderhood. 

“ I will if you’ll give me something to quench my thirst 
first." 

The bottle and jug were again produced, and he mixed 
a weak draught, and another, and drank both in 


722 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


quick succession. “You asked me something/* he said 
then. 

“ No, I didn’t,” replied Riderhood. 

“ I tell you,” retorted Bradley, turning upon him in a wild 
and desperate manner, “ you asked me something, before I 
went out to wash my face in the river.” 

“ OhI Then?” said Riderhood, backing a little. “I 
asked you wot you wos a-going to do.” 

How can a man in this state know? ” he answered, pro- 
testing with both his tremulous hands, with an action so 
vigorously angry that he shook the water from his sleeves 
upon the floor, as if he had wrung them. “ How can I plan 
anything, if I haven’t sleep ? ” 

“ Why, that’s what I as good as said,” returned the other. 
“ Didn’t I say lie down ? ” 

“ Well, perhaps you did.” 

“ Well! Anyways I says it again. Sleep where you slept 
last; the sounder and longer you can sleep, the better you’ll 
know arterwards what you’re up to.” 

His pointing to the truckle bed in the corner seemed 
gradually to bring that poor couch to Bradley’s wandering 
remembrance. He slipped off his worn down-trodden shoes, 
and cast himself heavily, all wet as he was, upon the bed. 

Riderhood sat down in his wooden arm-chair, and looked 
through the window at the lightning, and listened to the 
thunder. But his thoughts were far from being absorbed 
by the thunder and the lightning, for again and again and 
again he looked very curiously at the exhausted man upon 
the bed. The man had turned up the collar of the rough 
coat he wore, to shelter himself from the storm, and had 
buttoned it about his neck. Unconscious of that, and of 
most things, he had left the coat so, both when he had laved 
his face in the river, and when he had cast himself upon 
the bed; though it would have been much easier to him if 
he had loosened it. 

The thunder rolled heavily, and the forked lightning 
seemed to make jagged rents in every part of the vast 
curtain without, as Riderhood sat by the window, glancing 
at the bed. Sometimes he saw the man upon the bed by 
a red light; sometimes by a blue; sometimes he scarcely 




An/, 





I 



SETTING TRAPS 


723 


saw him in the darkness of the storm; sometimes he saw 
nothing of him in the blinding glare of palpitating white 
fire. Anon, the rain would come again with a tremendous 
rush, and the river would seem to rise to meet it, and a 
blast of wind, bursting upon the door, would flutter the 
hair and dress of the man, as if invisible messengers were 
come around the bed to carry him away. From all these 
phases of the storm, Riderhood would turn, as if they were 
interruptions — rather striking interruptions possibly, but 
interruptions still — of his scrutiny of the sleeper. 

“ He sleeps sound,” he said within himself; “ yet he’s that 
up to me and that noticing of me that my getting out of 
my chair may awake him, when a rattling peal won’t; let 
alone my touching of him.” 

He very cautiously rose to his feet. “ T’otherest,” he said, 
in a low, calm voice, are you a-lying easy ? There’s a 
chill in the air, governor. Shall I put a coat over you ? ” 

No answer. 

“ That’s about what it is a’ready, you see,” muttered 
Riderhood in a lower and a different voice; “ a coat over 
you, a coat over you! ” 

The sleeper moving an arm, he sat down again in his chair, 
and feigned to watch the storm from the window. It was 
a grand spectacle, but not so grand as to keep his eyes, for 
half a minute together, from stealing a look at the man upon 
the bed. 

It was at the concealed throat of the sleeper that Rider- 
hood so often looked so curiously, until the sleep seemed to 
deepen into the stupor of the dead-tired in mind and body. 
Then, Riderhood came from the window cautiously, and 
stood by the bed. 

“ Poor man! ” he murmured in a low tone, with a crafty 
face, and a very watchful eye and ready foot, lest he should 
start up; “ this here coat of his must make him uneasy in 
his sleep. Shall I loosen it for him, and make him more 
comfortable? Ah! I think I ought to do it, poor man. I 
think I will.” 

He touched the first button with a very cautious hand, and 
a step backward. But the sleeper remaining in profound 
unconsciousness, he touched the other buttons with a more 


724 


OUR mutual friend 


assured hand, and perhaps the more lightly on that account. 
Softly and slowly, he opened the coat and drew it back. 

The draggling ends of a bright-red neckerchief were then 
disclosed, and he had even been at the pains of dipping 
parts of it in some liquid, to give it the appearance of having 
become stained by wear. With a much-perplexed face, 
Riderhood looked from it to the sleeper, and from the sleeper 
to it, and finally crept back to his chair, and there, with his 
hand to his chin, sat long in a brown study, looking at both. 


CHAPTER II 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE 

Mr. and Mrs. Lammle had come to breakfast with Mr. and 
Mrs. Boffin. They were not absolutely uninvited, but had 
pressed themselves with so much urgency on the golden 
couple, that evasion of the honour and pleasure of their 
company would have been difficult, if desired. They were 
in a charming state of mind, were Mr. and Mrs. liammle, 
and almost as fond of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin as of one another. 

“ My dear Mrs. Boffin,” said Mrs. Lammle, “ it imparts 
new life to me, to see my Alfred in confidential communi- 
cation with Mr. Boffin. The two were formed to become 
intimate. So much simplicity combined with so much force 
of character, such natural sagacity united to such amiability 
and gentleness — those are the distinguishing characteristics 
of both.” 

This being said aloud, gave Mr. Lammle an opportunity, 
as he came with Mr. Boffin from the window to the breakfast 
table, of taking up his dear and honoured wife. 

“ My Sophronia,” said that gentleman, “ your too partial 
estimate of your poor husband’s character ” 

” No! Not too partial, Alfred,” urged the lady, tenderly 
moved; never say that.” 

“ My child, your favourable opinion, then, of your husband 
— you don’t object to that phrase, darling? ” 

How can I, Alfred? ” 

“ Your favourable opinion, then, my Precious, does less 
than justice to Mr. Boffin, and more than justice to me.” 

“ To the first charge, Alfred, I plead guilty. But to the 
second, oh no, no I ” 

“ Less than justice to Mr. Boffin, Sophronia,” said Mr. 
Lammle, soaring into a tone of moral grandeur, “ because it 


726 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


represents Mr. Boffin as on my lower level; more than jus- 
tice to me, Sophronia, because it represents me as on Mr. 
Boffin’s higher level. Mr. Boffin bears and forbears far 
more than I could.” 

“ Far more than you could for yourself, Alfred? ” 

“ My love, that is not the question.” 

“Not the question, Lawyer?” said Mrs. Lammle, 
archly. 

“ No, dear Sophronia. From my lower level, I regard 
Mr. Boffin as too generous, as possessed of too much clem- 
ency, as being too good to persons who are unworthy of him 
and ungrateful to him. To those noble qualities I can lay 
no claim. On the contrary, they rouse my indignation when 
I see them in action.” 

“Alfred!” 

“They rouse my indignation, my dear, against the un- 
worthy persons, and give me a combative desire to stand 
between Mr. Boffin and all such persons. Why? Because 
in my lower nature I am more worldly and less delicate. 
Not being so magnanimous as Mr. Boffin, I feel his injuries 
more than he does himself, and feel more capable of opposing 
his injurers.” 

It struck Mrs. Lammle that it appeared rather difficult 
this morning to bring Mr. and Mrs. Boffin into agreeable 
conversation. Here had been several lures thrown out, and 
neither of them had uttered a word. Here were she, Mrs. 
Lammle, and her husband discoursing at once affectingly 
and effectively, but discoursing alone. Assuming that the 
dear old creatures were impressed by what they heard, still 
one would like to be sure of it, the more so, as at least one 
of the dear old creatures was somewhat pointedly referred 
to. If the dear old creatures were too bashful or too dull 
to assume their required places in the discussion, why then 
it would seem desirable that the dear old creatures should 
be taken by their heads and shoulders and brought into 
it. 

“ But is not my husband saying in effect,” asked Mrs. 
Lammle, therefore, with an innocent air, of Mr. and Mrs. 
Boffin, “ that he becomes unmindful of his own temporary 
misfortunes in his admiration of another whom he is burn- 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE 727 

ing to serve? And is not that making an admission that 
his nature is a generous one? I am wretched in argument, 
but surely this is so, dear Mr. and Mrs. Boffin? ” 

Still, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Boffin said a word. He sat 
with his eyes on his plate, eating his muffins and ham, and 
she sat shyly looking at the teapot. Mrs. Lammle’s in- 
nocent appeal was merely thrown into the air to mingle 
with the steam of the urn. Glancing towards Mr. and Mrs. 
Boffin, she very slightly raised her eyebrows, as though 
inquiring of her husband: “ Do I notice anything wrong 
here ? ” 

Mr. Lammle, who had found his chest effective on a 
variety of occasions, manoeuvred his capacious shirt-front 
into the largest demonstration possible, and then smiling, 
retorted on his wife, thus: 

“ Sophronia, darling, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin will remind you 
of the old adage, that self-praise is no recommendation.^’ 

“ Self-praise, Alfred ? Do you mean because we are one 
and the same ? ” 

“ No, my dear child. I mean that you cannot fail to 
remember, if you reflect for a single moment, that what you 
are pleased to compliment me upon feeling in the case of 
Mr. Boffin, you have yourself confided to me as your own 
feeling in the case of Mrs. Boffin.” 

(‘‘ I shall be beaten by this Lawyer,” Mrs. Lammle gaily 
whispered to Mrs. Boffin. “ I am afraid I must admit it, if 
he presses me, for it’s dam agin gly true.”) 

Several white dints began to come and go about Mr. 
Lammle’s nose, as he observed that Mrs. Boffin merely looked 
up from the teapot for a moment with an embarrassed 
smile, which was no smile, and then looked down again. 

“ Do you admit the charge, Sophronia? ” inquired Alfred, 
in a rallying tone. 

“ Really, I think,” said Mrs. Lammle, still gaily, “ I must 
throw myself on the protection of the Court. Am I bound 
to answer that question, my Lord? ” To Mr. Boffin. 

“You needn’t if you don’t like, ma’am,” was his answer. 
“ It’s not of the least consequence.” 

Both husband and wife glanced at him very doubtfully. 
His manner was grave, but not coarse, and derived some 


728 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


dignity from a certain repressed dislike of the tone of the 
conversation. 

Again Mrs. Lammle raised her eyebrows for instruction 
from her husband. He replied in a slight nod, “ Try 'em 
again.” 

“To protect myself against the suspicion of covert self- 
laudation, my dear Mrs. Boffin,” said the airy Mrs. Lammle, 
“ therefore, I must tell you how it was.” 

“ No. Pray don’t,” Mr. Boffin interposed. 

Mrs. Lammle turned to him laughingly. The Court 
objects ? ” 

“ Ma’am,” said Mr. Boffin, “ the Court (if I am the Court) 
does object. The Court objects for two reasons. First, 
because the Court don’t think it fair. Secondly, because the 
dear old lady, Mrs. Court (if I am Mr.) gets distressed by 
it.” 

A very remarkable wavering between two bearings — 
between her propitiatory bearing there, and her defiant 
bearing at Mr. Twemlow’s — was observable on the part of 
Mrs. Lammle as she said: “ What does the Court not con- 
sider fair ? ” 

“ Letting you go on,” replied Mr. Boffin, nodding his 
head soothingly, as who should say. We won’t be harder on 
you than we can help; we’ll make the best of it. “ It’s not 
above-board and it’s not fair. When the old lady is un- 
comfortable, there’s sure to be good reason for it. I see 
she is uncomfortable, and I plainly see this is the good reason 
wherefore. Have you breakfasted, ma’am?” 

Mrs. Lammle, settling into her defiant manner, pushed 
her plate away, looked at her husband, and laughed; but by 
no means gaily. 

“Have you breakfasted, sir?” inquired Mr. Boffin. 

“ Thank you,” replied Alfred, showing all his teeth. “ If 
Mrs. Boffin will oblige me. I’ll take another cup of tea.” 

He spilled a little of it over the chest which ought to have 
been so effective, and which had done so little; but on the 
whole drank it with something of an air, though the coming 
and going dints got almost as large, the while, as if they had 
been made by pressure of the teaspoon. “A thousand 
thanks,” he then observed. “ I have breakfasted.” 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE 729 

“ Now, which,” said Mr. Boffin softly, taking out a pocket- 
book, “ which of you two is Cashier? ” 

“ Sophronia, my dear,” remarked her husband, as he leaned 
back in his chair, waving his right hand towards her, while 
he hung his left hand by the thumb in the arm-hole of his 
waistcoat: “ it shall be your department.” 

“ I would rather,” said Mr. Boffin, “ that it was your hus- 
band’s, ma’am, because — but never mind because. I would 
rather have to do with him. However, what I have to say, 
I will say with as little offence as possible: if I can say it 
without any, I shall be heartily glad. You two have done 
me a service, a very great service, in doing what you did 
(my old lady knows what it was), and I have put into this 
envelope a bank note for a hundred pound. I consider the 
service well worth a hundred pound, and I am well pleased 
to pay the money. Would you do me the favour to take it, 
and likewise to accept my thanks ? ” 

With a haughty action, and without looking towards him, 
Mrs. Lammle held out her left hand, and into it Mr. Boffin 
put the little packet. When she had conveyed it to her 
bosom, Mr. Lammle had the appearance of feeling relieved, 
and breathing more freely, as not having been quite certain 
that the hundred pounds were his, until the note had been 
safely transferred out of Mr. Boffin’s keeping into his own 
Sophronia’s. 

“ It is not impossible,” said Mr. Boffin, addressing Alfred, 
'' that you have had some general idea, sir, of replacing 
Rokesmith, in course of time ? ” 

“It is not,” assented Alfred, with a glittering smile and a 
great deal of nose, “ not impossible.” 

“And perhaps, ma’am,” pursued Mr. Boffin, addressing 
Sophronia, “ you have been so kind as to take up my old 
lady in your own mind, and to do her the honour of turning 
the question over whether you mightn’t one of these days 
have her in charge, like? Whether you mightn’t be a sort 
of Miss Bella Wilfer to her, and something more ? ” 

“ I should hope,” returned Mrs. Lammle, with a scornful 
look and in a loud voice, “ that if I were anything to your 
wife, sir, I could hardly fail to be something more than Miss 
Bella Wilfer, as you call her.” 


730 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ What do you call her, ma’am? ” asked Mr. Boffin. 

Mrs. Laminle disdained to reply, and sat defiantly beating 
one foot on the ground. 

“ Again I think I may say, that’s not impossible. Is it, 
sir? ” asked Mr. Boffin, turning to Alfred. 

“ It is not,” said Alfred, smiling assent as before, “ not 
impossible.” 

“ Now,” said Mr. Boffin, gently, ‘‘ it won’t do. I don’t 
wish to say a single word that might be afterwards remem- 
bered as unpleasant; but it won’t do.” 

“ Sophronia, my love,” her husband repeated in a bantering 
manner, “ you hear? It won’t do.” 

No,” said Mr. Boffin, with his voice still dropped, “ it 
really won’t. You positively must excuse us. If you’ll go 
your way, we’ll go ours, and so I hope this affair ends to 
the satisfaction of all parties.” 

Mrs. Lammle gave him a look of a decidedly dissatisfied 
party demanding exemption from the category; but said 
nothing. 

“ The best thing we can make of the affair,” said I\Ir. 
Boffin, “ is a matter of business, and as a matter of business 
it’s brought to a conclusion. You have done me a great 
service, a very great service, and I have paid you for it. Is 
there any objection to the price ? ” 

Mr. and Mrs. Lammle looked at one another across the 
table, but neither could say that there was. Mr. Lammle 
shrugged his shoulders, and Mrs. Lammle sat rigid. 

“ Very good,” said Mr. Boffin. “ We hope (my old lady 
and me) that you’ll give us credit for taking the plainest and 
honestest short-cut that could be taken under the circum- 
stances. We have talked it over with a deal of care (my old 
lady and me), and we have felt that at all to lead you on, or 
even at all to let you go on of your own selves, wouldn’t be 
the right thing. So I have openly given you to understand 
that — ” Mr. Boffin sought for a new turn of speech, but 
could find none so expressive as his former one, repeated in a 
confidential tone, “ — that it won’t do. If I could have put 
the case more pleasantly I would; but I hope I haven’t put 
it very unpleasantly; at all events I haven’t meant to. So,” 
said Mr. Boffin, by way of peroration, “ wishing you well in 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE 731 

the way you go, we now conclude with the observation that 
perhaps you’ll go it.” 

Mr. Lammle rose with an impudent laugh on his side of 
the table, and Mrs. Lammle rose with a disdainful frown on 
hers. At this moment a hasty foot was heard on the stair- 
case, and Georgiana Podsnap broke into the room, unan- 
nounced and in tears. 

“ Oh, my dear Sophronia,” cried Georgiana, wTinging her 
hands as she ran up to embrace her, “ to think that you and 
Alfred should be ruined! Oh, my poor dear Sophronia, to 
think that you should have had a Sale at your house after 
all your kindness to me! Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, pray 
forgive me for this intrusion, but you don’t know how fond 
I was of Sophronia when Pa wouldn’t let me go there any 
more, or wdiat I have felt for Sophronia since I heard from 
Ma of her having been brought low in the world. You 
don’t, you can’t, you never can, think, how I have lain awake 
at night and cried for my good Sophronia, my first and 
only friend!” 

Mrs. Lammle’s manner changed under the poor silly girl’s 
embraces, and she turned extremely pale: directing one 
appealing look, first to Mrs. Boffin, and then to Mr. Boffin. 
Both understood her instantly, with a more delicate subtlety 
than much better educated people, whose perception came 
less directly from the heart, could have brought to bear upon 
the case. 

I haven’t a minute,” said poor little Georgiana, to stay. 
I am out shopping early ^with Ma, and I said I had a head- 
ache and got Ma to leave me outside in the phaeton, in 
Piccadilly, and ran round to Sackville Street, and heard that 
Sophronia was here, and then Ma came to see, oh such a 
dreadful old stony woman from the country in a turban in 
Portland Place, and I said I wouldn’t go up with Ma but 
would drive round and leave cards for the Boffins, wdiich is 
taking a liberty with the name; but oh my goodness I am 
distracted, and the phaeton’s at the door, and what would 
Pa say if he knew it ! ” 

“ Don’t ye be timid, my dear,” said Mrs. Boffin. “You 
came in to see us.” 

“ Oh, no, I didn’t,” cried Georgiana. “ It’s very impolite. 


732 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


I know, but I came to see my poor Sophronia, my only 
friend. Oh! how I felt the separation, my dear Sophronia, 
before I knew you were brought low in the world, and how 
much more I feel it now! ” 

There were actually tears in the bold woman’s eyes, as 
the soft-headed and soft-hearted girl twined her arms about 
her neck. 

“ But I’ve come on business,” said Georgiana, sobbing and 
drying her face, and then searching in a little reticule, “ and 
if I don’t dispatch it I shall have come for nothing, and oh 
good gracious! what would Pa say if he knew of Sackville 
Street, and what would Ma say if she was kept waiting on 
the doorsteps of that dreadful turban, and there never were 
such pawing horses as ours unsettling my mind every mo- 
ment more and more when I want more mind than I have 
got, by pawing up Mr. Boffin’s street where they have no 
business to be. Oh! where is, where is it? Oh! I can’t find 
it! ” All this time sobbing, and searching in the little reticule. 

“ What do you miss, my dear ? ” asked Mr, Boffin, stepping 
forward. 

“Oh! it’s little enough,” replied Georgiana, “ because Ma 
always treats me as if I was in the nursery (I am sure I 
wish I was !), but I hardly ever spend it, and it has mounted 
up to fifteen pounds, Sophronia, and I hope three five-pound 
notes are better than nothing, though so little, so little! 
And now I have found that — oh, my goodness ! there’s the 
other gone next! Oh no, it isn’t, here it is! ” 

With that, always sobbing and searching in the reticule, 
Georgiana produced a necklace. 

“ Ma says chits and jewels have no business together,” 
pursued Georgiana, “ and that’s the reason why I have no 
trinkets except this; but I suppose my aunt Hawkinson was 
of a different opinion, because she left me this, though I 
used to think she might just as well have buried it, for it’s 
always kept in jeweller’s cotton. How^ever, here it is, I am 
thankful to say, and of use at last, and you’ll sell it, dear 
Sophronia, and buy things with it.” 

“ Give it to me,” said Mr. Boffin, gently taking it. “ I’ll 
see that it’s properly disposed of.” 

“ Oh! are you such a friend of Sophronia’s, Mr. Boffin? ” 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE 733 


cried Georgiana. “ Oh, how good of you ! Oh, my gracious ! 
there was something else, and it’s gone out of my head! 
Oh no, it isn’t, I remember what it was. My grandmamma’s 
property, that’ll come to me when I am of age, Mr. Boffin, 
will be all my own, and neither Pa nor Ma nor anybody else 
will have any control over it, and what I wish to do is to 
make some of it over somehow to Sophronia and Alfred, 
by signing something somewhere that’ll prevail on somebody 
to advance them something. I want them to have something 
handsome to bring them up in the world again. Oh, my 
goodness me ! Being such a friend of my dear Sophronia’s, 
you won’t refuse me, will you ? ” 

“ No, no,” said Mr. Boffin, “ it shall be seen to.” 

“ Oh, thank you, thank you! ” cried Georgiana. “ If my 
maid had a little note and half a crown, I could run round 
to the pastrycook’s to sign something, or I could sign some- 
thing in the square if somebody would come and cough for 
me to let ’em in with the key, and would bring a pen and 
ink with ’em and a bit of blotting-paper. Oh, my gracious! 
I must tear myself away, or Pa and Ma will both find out! 
Dear, dear Sophronia, good, good-bye! ” 

The credulous little creature again embraced Mrs. Lammle 
most affectionately, and then held out her hand to Mr. 
Lammle. 

“Good-bye, dear Mr. Lammle — I mean Alfred. You 
won’t think after to-day that I have deserted you and Sophro- 
nia because you have been brought low in the world, will you ? 
Oh me! oh me! I have been crying my eyes out of my 
head, and Ma will be sure to ask me what’s the matter. Oh, 
take me down, somebody, please, please, please ! ” 

Mr. Boffin took her down, and saw her driven away, with 
her poor little red eyes and weak chin peering over the great 
apron of the custard-coloured phaeton, as if she had been 
ordered to expiate some childish misdemeanour by going to 
bed in the daylight, and were peeping over the counterpane in 
a miserable flutter of repentance and low spirits. Returning 
to the breakfast-room, he found Mrs. Lammle still standing 
on her side of the table, and Mr. Lammle on his side. 

“ I’ll take care,” said Mr. Boffin, showing the money and 
the necklace, “ that these are soon given back.” 


734 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Mrs. Lammle had taken up her parasol from a side table, 
and stood sketching with it on the pattern of the damask 
cloth, as she had sketched on the pattern of Mr. Twemlow's 
papered wall. 

“You will not undeceive her, I hope, Mr. Boffin?” she 
said, turning her head towards him, but not her eyes. 

“ No,” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ I mean, as to the worth and value of her friend,” Mrs. 
I.ammle explained, in a measured voice, and with an emphasis 
on her last word. 

“ No,” he returned. “ I may try to give a hint at her home 
that she is in want of kind and careful protection, but I 
shall say no more than that to her parents, and I shall say 
nothing to the young lady herself.” 

“ Mr. and Mrs. Boffin,” said Mrs. Lammle, still sketching, 
and seeming to bestow great pains upon it, “ there are not 
many people, I think, who, under the circumstances, would 
have been so considerate and sparing as you have been to 
me just now. Do you care to be thanked ? ” 

“ Thanks are always worth having,” said Mrs. Boffin, in 
her ready good nature. 

“ Then thank you both.” 

“ Sophronia,” asked her husband, mockingly, “ are you 
sentimental ? ” 

“ Well, well, my good sir,” Mr. Boffin interposed, “ it’s 
a very good thing to think well of another person, and it’s 
a very good thing to be thought well of by another person. 
Mrs. Lammle will be none the worse for it, if she is.” 

“ Much obliged. But I asked Mrs. Lammle if she was.” 

She stood sketching on the table-cloth, with her face 
clouded and set, and was silent. 

“ Because,” said Alfred, “ I am disposed to be sentimental 
myself, on your appropriation of the jewels and the money, 
Mr. Boffin. As our little Georgiana said, three five-pound 
notes are better than nothing, and if you sell a necklace you 
can buy things with the produce.” 

“ If you sell it,” was Mr. Boffin’s comment, as he put it in 
his pocket. 

Alfred followed it with his looks, and also greedily pursued 
the notes until they vanished into Mr. Boffin’s waistcoat 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE 735 


pocket. Then he directed a look, half exasperating and half 
jeering, at his wife. She still stood sketching; but, as she 
sketched, there was a struggle within her, which found ex- 
pression in the depth of the few last lines of the parasol 
point indented into the table-cloth, and then some tears fell 
from her eyes. 

Why, confound the woman,’' exclaimed Lammle, “ she 
is sentimental I ” 

She walked to the window, flinching under his angry stare, 
looked out for a moment, and turned round quite coldly. 

“You have had no former cause of complaint on the 
sentimental score, Alfred, and you will have none in future. 
It is not worth your noticing. We go abroad soon, with the 
money we have earned here ? ” 

“ You know we do; you know we must.” 

“ There is no fear of my taking any sentiment with me. 
I should soon be eased of it, if I did. But it will be all 
left behind. It is all left behind. Are you ready, Alfred ? ” 

“ What the deuce have I been waiting for but you, So- 
phronia ? ” 

“ I./et us go then. I am sorry I have delayed our dignified 
departure.” 

She passed out and he followed her. Mr. and Mrs. Boffin 
had the curiosity softly to raise a window and look after 
them as they went down the long street. They walked arm 
in arm, showily enough, but without appearing to interchange 
a syllable. It might have been fanciful to suppose that under 
their outer bearing there was something of the shamed air 
of two cheats who were linked together by concealed hand- 
cuffs; but, not so, to suppose that they were haggardly weary 
of one another, of themselves, and of all this world. In 
turning the street corner they might have turned out of this 
world, for anything Mr. and Mrs. Boffin ever saw of them 
to the contrary; for they set eyes on the Lammles never 
more. 


CHAPTER III 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN 

The evening of that day being one of the reading evenings 
at the Bower, Mr. Boffin kissed Mrs. Boffin after a five o’clock 
dinner, and trotted out, nursing his big stick in both arms, 
so that, as of old, it seemed to be whispering in his ear. Pie 
carried so very attentive an expression on his countenance 
that it appeared as if the confidential discourse of the big 
stick required to be followed closely. Mr. Boffin’s face 
was like the face of a thoughtful listener to an intricate 
communication, and, in trotting along, he occasionally 
glanced at that companion wdth the look of a man who was 
interposing the remark, “ You don’t mean it! ” 

Mr. Boffin and his stick went on alone together, until they 
arrived at certain cross-ways where they would be likely to 
fall in with any one coming, at about the same time, from 
Clerkenwell to the Bower. Here they stopped, and Mr. Boffin 
consulted his watch. 

“ It wants five minutes, good, to Venus’s appointment,” 
said he. “ I’m rather early.” 

But Venus was a punctual man, and, even as Mr. Boffin 
replaced his watch in its pocket, was to be descried coming 
towards him. He quickened his pace on seeing Mr. Boffin 
already at the place of meeting, and was'soon at his side. 

“ Thank’ee, Venus,” said Mr. Boffin. “ Thank’ee, 
thank’ee, thank’ee I ” 

It would not have been very evident why he thanked the 
anatomist, but for his furnishing the explanation in what he 
went on to say. 

“ All right, Venus, all right. Now, that you’ve been to 
see me, and have consented to keep up the appearance before 
Wegg of remaining in it for a time, I have got a sort of a 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN 737 

backer. All right, Venus. Thank’ee, Venus. Thank’ee, 
thank’ee, thank’ee!” 

Mr. Venus shook the proffered hand with a modest air, 
and they pursued the direction of the Bower. 

“ Do you think Wegg is likely to drop down upon me 
to-night, Venus ? ” inquired Mr. Boffin, wistfully, as they 
went along. 

“ I think he is, sir.” 

“ Have you any particular reason for thinking so, Venus ? ” 

“ Well, sir,” returned that personage, “ the fact is, he has 
given me another look-in, to make sure of what he calls our 
stock-in-trade being correct, and he has mentioned his inten- 
tion that he was not to be put off beginning with you the very 
next time you should come. And this,” hinted Mr. Venus, 
delicately, being the very next time, you know, sir ” 

“ — Why, therefore, you suppose he’ll turn to at the grind- 
stone, eh, Venus ? ” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ Just so, sir.” 

Mr. Boffin took his nose in his hand, as if it were already 
excoriated, and the sparks were beginning to fly out of that 
feature. “ He’s a terrible fellow, Venus; he’s an awful fellow. 
I don’t know how ever I shall go through with it. You 
must stand by me, Venus, like a good man and true. You’ll 
do all you can to stand by me, Venus; won’t you ? ” 

Mr. Venus replied with the assurance that he would; and 
Mr. Boffin, looking anxious and dispirited, pursued the way 
in silence until they rang at the Bower gate. The stumping 
approach of Wegg was soon heard behind it, and as it turned 
upon its hinges he became visible with his hand on the lock. 

“Mr. Boffin, sir?” he remarked. “You’re quite a 
stranger.” 

“ Yes. I’ve been otherwise occupied, Wegg.” 

“ Have you indeed, sir? ” returned the literary gentleman, 
with a threatening sneer. “Hah! I’ve been looking for 
you, sir, rather what I may call specially.” 

“ You don’t say so, Wegg? ” 

“ Yes, I do say so, sir. And if you hadn’t come round to 
me to-night, dash my wig if I wouldn’t have come round to 
you to-morrow. Now! I tell you! ” 

“ Nothing wTong, I hope, .Wegg? ” 


738 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Oh no, Mr. Boffin,” was the ironical answer. “ Nothing 
wrongl What should be wrong in Boffinses Bower? Step 
in, sir. 

‘ If you’ll come to the Bower Pve shaded for you, 

Your bed shan’t be roses all spangled with doo: 

Will you, will you, will you, will you, come to the Bower? 

Oh, won’t you, won’t you, won’t you, won’t you, come to the 
Bower?’ ” 

An unholy glare of contradiction and offence shone in the 
eyes of Mr. Wegg, as he turned the key on his patron, after 
ushering him into the yard with this vocal quotation. Mr. 
Boffin’s air was crestfallen and submissive. Whispered Wegg 
to Venus, as they crossed the yard behind him: “ Look at 
the worm and minion; he’s down in the mouth already.” 
Whispered Venus to Wegg: “ That’s because I’ve told him. 
I’ve prepared the way for you.” 

Mr. Boffin, entering the usual chamber, laid his stick upon 
the settle usually reserved for him, thrust his hands into his 
pockets, and, with his shoulders raised and his hat drooping 
back upon them, looked disconsolately at Wegg. “ My friend 
and partner, Mr. Venus, gives me to understand,” remarked 
that man of might, addressing him, that you are aware of 
our power over you. Now, when you have took your hat off, 
we’ll go into that pint.” 

Mr. Boffin shook it off with one shake, so that it dropped 
on the floor behind him, and remained in his former attitude 
with his former rueful look upon him. 

“ First of all, I’m a-going to call you Boffin, for short,” 
said Wegg. “ If you don’t like it, it’s open to you to lump 
it.” 

“ I don’t mind it, Wegg,” Mr. Boffin replied. 

That’s lucky for you. Boffin. Now, do you want to be 
read to? ” 

“ I don’t particularly care about it to-night, Wegg.” 

“ Because if you did want,” pursued Mr. Wegg, the 
brilliancy of whose point was dimmed by his having been 
unexpectedly answered: “you wouldn’t be. I’ve been your 
slave long enough. I’m not to be trampled under-foot by a 
dustman any more. With the single exception of the salary, 
I renounce the whole and total sitiwation.” 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN 739 

“ Since you say it is to be so, Wegg,” returned Mr. Boffin, 
with folded hands, “ I suppose it must be.” 

“ I suppose it must be,” Wegg retorted. “ Next (to clear 
the ground before coming to business), you’ve placed in this 
yard a skulking, a sneaking, and a sniffing menial.” 

“ He hadn’t a cold in his head when I sent him here,” said 
Mr. Boffin. 

“ Boffin! ” retorted Wegg, “ I warn you not to attempt a 
joke with me! ” 

Here Mr. Venus interposed, and remarked that he con- 
ceived Mr. Boffin to have taken the description literally; the 
rather, forasmuch as he, Mr. Venus, had himself supposed the 
menial to have contracted an affliction or a habit of the nose, 
involving a serious drawback on the pleasures of social inter- 
course, until he had discovered that Mr. Wegg’s description 
of him was to be accepted as merely figurative. 

“ Any how, and every how,” said Wegg, “ he has been 
planted here, and he is here. Now, I won’t have him here. 
So I call upon Boffin, before I say another word, to fetch 
him in and send him packing to the right-about.” 

The unsuspecting Sloppy was at that moment airing his 
many buttons within view of the window. Mr. Boffin, after 
a short interval of impassive discomfiture, opened the window 
and beckoned him to come in. 

‘‘ I call upon Boffin,” said Wegg, with one arm akimbo 
and his head on one side, like a bullying counsel pausing for 
an answer from a witness, “ to inform that menial that I am 
Master here.” 

In humble obedience, when the button-gleaming Sloppy 
entered, Mr. Boffin said to him; “Sloppy, my fine fellow, 
Mr. Wegg is Master here. He doesn’t want you, and you 
are to go from here.” 

“ For good ! ” Mr. Wegg severely stipulated. 

“ For good,” said Mr. Boffin. 

Sloppy stared, with both his eyes and all his buttons, and 
his mouth wide open; but was without loss of time escorted 
forth by Silas Wegg, pushed out at the yard gate by the 
shoulders, and locked out. 

“ The atomspear,” said Wegg, stumping back into the 
room again, a little reddened by his late exertion, “ is now 


740 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


freer for the purposes of respiration. Mr. Venus, sir, take a 
chair. Boffin, you may sit down.” 

Mr. Boffin, still with his hands ruefully stuck in his pockets, 
sat on the edge of the settle, shrunk into a small compass, 
and eyed the potent Silas with conciliatory looks. 

“ This gentleman,” said Silas Wegg, pointing out Venus, 
” this gentleman, Boffin, is more milk and watery with you 
than ril be. But he hasn’t borne the Roman yoke as I have, 
nor yet he hasn’t been required to pander to your depraved 
appetite for miserly characters.” 

“ I never meant, my dear Wegg — ” Mr. Boffin was be- 
ginning, when Silas stopped him. 

“Hold your tongue. Boffin! Answer when you’re called 
upon to answer. You’ll find you’ve got quite enough to do. 
Now, you’re aware — are you — that you’re in possession of 
property to which you’ve no right at all? Are you aware 
of that?” 

“ Venus tells me so,” said Mr. Boffin, glancing towards him 
for any support he could give. 

“ / tell you so,” returned Silas. “ Now, here’s my hat. 
Boffin, and here’s my walking-stick. Trifle with me, and 
instead of making a bargain with you. I’ll put on my hat 
and take up my walking-stick, and go out and make a 
bargain with the rightful owner. Now, what do you 
say?” 

“ I say,” returned Mr. Boffin, leaning forward in alarmed 
appeal, with his hands on his knees, “ that I am sure I don’t 
want to trifle, Wegg. I have said so to Venus.” 

“ You certainly have, sir,” said Venus. 

“ You’re too milk and watery with our friend, you are 
indeed,” remonstrated Silas, with a disapproving shake of his 
wooden head. “ Then at once you confess yourself desirous 
to come to terms, do you. Boffin? Before you answer, keep 
this hat well in your mind, and also this walking-stick.” 

“ I am willing, Wegg, to come to terms.” 

“ Willing won’t do. Boffin. I won’t take willing. Are you 
desirous to come to terms ? Do you ask to be allowed as a 
favour to come to terms ? ” Mr. Wegg again planted his 
arm, and put his head on one side. 

“ Yes.” 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN 741 

“Yes what?” said the inexorable Wegg: “ I won’t take 
yes. I’ll have it out of you in full, Boffin.” 

“ Dear me! ” cried that unfortunate gentleman. “ I am so 
worrited! I ask to be allowed to come to terms, supposing 
your document is all correct.” 

“ Don’t you be afraid of that,” said Silas, poking his head 
at him. “You shall be satisfied by seeing it. Mr. Venus 
will show it you, and I’ll hold you the while. Then you 
w'ant to know what the terms are. Is that about the sum 
and substance of it ? Will you or won’t you answer, Boffin ? ” 
For he had paused a moment. 

“ Dear me! ” cried that unfortunate gentleman again, “ I 
am worrited to that degree that I’m almost off my head. 
You hurry me so. Be so good as name the terms, Wegg.” 

“Now, mark, Boffin,” returned Silas: “Mark ’em well, 
because they’ re the lowest terms and the only terms. You’ll 
throw your Mound (the little Mound as comes to you any- 
way) into the general estate, and then you’ll divide the whole 
property into three parts, and you’ll keep one and hand over 
the others.” 

Mr. Venus’s mouth screwed itself up, as Mr. Boffin’s face 
lengthened itself; Mr. Venus not having been prepared for 
such a rapacious demand. 

“ Now, wait a bit. Boffin,” Wegg proceeded, “ there’s some- 
thing more. You’ve been a squandering this property — lay- 
ing some of it out on yourself. That won’t do. You’ve 
bought a house. You’ll be charged for it.” 

“ I shall be ruined, Wegg! ” Mr. Boffin faintly protested. 

“ Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there’s something more. You’ll 
leave me in sole custody of these Mounds till they’re all laid 
low. If any waluables should be found in ’em. I’ll take care 
of such waluables. You’ll produce your contract for the 
sale of the Mounds, that we may know to a penny what 
they’re worth, and you’ll make out likewise an exact list of 
all the other property. When the Mounds is cleared away 
to the last shovel -full, the final diwision will come off.” 

“ Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful! I shall die in a work- 
house!” cried the Golden Dustman, with his hands to his 
head. 

“ Now, wait a bit. Boffin; there’s something more. You’ve 


742 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


been unlawfully ferreting about this yard. You’ve been seen 
in the act of ferreting about this yard. Two pair of eyes at 
the present moment brought to bear upon you, have seen 
you dig up a Dutch bottle.” 

“ It was mine, Wegg,” protested Mr. Boffin. “ I put it 
there myself.” 

“ What was in it. Boffin ? ” inquired Silas. 

“ Not gold, not silver, not bank notes, not jewels, nothing 
that you could turn into money, Wegg; upon my soul! ” 

“ Prepared, Mr. Venus,” said Wegg, turning to his partner 
with a knowing and superior air, “ for an ewasive answer on 
the part of our dusty friend here, I have hit out a little idea 
which I think will meet your views. We charge that bottle 
against our dusty friend at a thousand pound.” 

Mr. Boffin drew a deep groan. 

“ Now, wait a bit. Boffin; there’s something more. In your 
employment is an under-handed sneak, named Rokesmith. 
It won’t answer to have him about, while this business of ours 
is about. He must be discharged.” 

“ Rokesmith is already discharged,” said Mr. Boffin, speak- 
ing in a muffled voice, with his hands before his face, as he 
rocked himself on the settle. 

“Already discharged, is he?” returned Wegg, surprised. 
“ Oh! Then, Boffin, I believe there’s nothing more at 
present,” 

The unlucky gentleman continuing to rock himself to and 
fro, and to utter an occasional moan, Mr. Venus besought 
him to bear up against his reverses, and to take time to 
accustom himself to the thought of his new position. But, 
his taking time was exactly the thing of all others that Silas 
Wegg could not be induced to hear of. “Yes or no, and 
no half-measures!” was the motto which that obdurate 
person many times repeated; shaking his fist at Mr. Boffin, 
and pegging his motto into the floor with his wooden leg, 
in a threatening and alarming manner. 

At length Mr. Boffin entreated to be allowed a quarter of 
an hour’s grace, and a cooling walk of that duration in the 
yard. With some difficulty Mr. Wegg granted this great 
favour, but only on condition that he accompanied Mr. 
Boffin in his walk, as not knowing what he might fraudu- 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN 


743 


lently unearth if he were left to himself. A more absurd sight 
than Mr. Boffin in his mental irritation trotting very nimbly, 
and Mr. Wegg hopping after him with great exertion, eager to 
watch the slightest turn of an eyelash, lest it should indicate 
a spot rich with some secret, assuredly had never been seen 
in the shadow of the Mounds. Mu Wegg was much distressed 
when the quarter of an hour expired, and came hopping in, 
a very bad second. 

“ I can’t help myself! ” cried Mr. Boffin, flouncing on the 
settle in a forlorn manner, with his hands deep in his pockets, 
as if his pockets had sunk. “ What’s the good of my pre- 
tending to stand out, when I can’t help myself? I must 
give in to the terms. But I should like to see the document.” 

Wegg, who was all for clinching the nail he had so strongly 
driven home, announced that Boffin should see it without an 
hour’s delay. Taking him into custody for that purpose, or 
overshadowing him as if he really were his Evil Genius in 
visible form, Mr. Wegg clapped Mr. Boffin’s hat upon the 
back of his head, and walked him out by the arm, asserting 
a proprietorship over his soul and body that was at once 
more grim and more ridiculous than anything in Mr. Venus’s 
rare collection. That light-haired gentleman followed close 
upon their heels, at least backing up Mr. Boffin in a literal 
sense, if he had not had recent opportunities of doing so 
spiritually; while Mr. Boffin, trotting on as hard as he could 
trot, involved Silas Wegg in frequent collisions with the 
public, much as a preoccupied blind man’s dog may be seen 
to involve his master. 

Thus they reached Mr. Venus’s establishment, somewhat 
heated by the nature of their progress thither. Mr. Wegg, 
especially, was in a flaming glow, and stood in the little shop, 
panting and mopf)ing his head with his pocket-handkerchief, 
speechless for several minutes. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Venus, who had left the duelling frogs 
to fight it out in his absence by candlelight for the public 
delectation, put the shutters up. When all was snug, and 
the shop-door fastened, he said to the perspiring Silas: “ I 
suppose, Mr. Wegg, we may now produce the paper?” 

“ Hold on a minute, sir,” replied that discreet character; 

hold on a minute. Will you obligingly shove that box — 


744 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


which jou mentioned on a former occasion as containing 
miscellanies — towards me in the midst of the shop here? ” 

Mr. Venus did as he was asked. 

“Very good/’ said Silas, looking about: “ ve — ry good. 
Will you hand me that chair, sir, to put atop of it ? ” 

Venus handed him the chair. 

“ Now, Boffin,” said Wegg, “ mount up here and take your 
seat, will you ? ” 

Mr. Boffin, as if he were about to have his portrait painted, 
or to be electrified, or to be made a Freemason, or to be 
placed at any other solitary disadvantage, ascended the 
rostrum prepared for him. 

“ Now, Mr. Venus,” said Silas, taking off his coat, “ when 
I catches our friend here round the arms and body, and pins 
him tight to the back of the chair, you may show him what 
he wants to see. If you’ll open it and hold it well up in one 
hand, sir, and a candle in the other, he can read it charming.” 

Mr. Boffin seemed rather inclined to object to these pre- 
cautionary arrangements, but, being immediately embraced 
by Wegg, resigned himself. Venus then produced the docu- 
ment, and Mr. Boffin slowly spelt it out aloud: so very 
slowly, that Wegg, who was holding him in the chair with 
the grip of a wrestler, became again exceedingly the worse 
for his exertions. “ Say when you’ve put it safe back, Mr. 
Venus,” he uttered with difficulty, “ for the strain of this is 
terrimenjious.” 

At length the document was restored to its place; and 
Wegg, whose uncomfortable attitude had been that of a very 
persevering man unsuccessfully attempting to stand upon his 
head, took a seat to recover himself. Mr. Boffin, for his part, 
made no attempt to come down, but remained aloft discon- 
solate. ' 

“ Well, Boffin! ” said Wegg, as soon as he was in a con- 
dition to speak. “ Now you know! ” 

“ Yes, Wegg,” said Mr. Boffin, meekly. “ Now I know.” 

“ You have no doubts about it. Boffin ? ” 

“ No, Wegg. No, Wegg. None,” was the slow and sad 
reply. 

“ Then, take care, you,” said Wegg, “ that you stick to 
your conditions. Mr. Venus, if on this auspicious occasion 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN 745 

you should happen to have a drop qf anything not quite so 
mild as tea in the *ouse, I think Fd take the friendly liberty 
of asking you for a specimen of it.” 

Mr. Venus, reminded of the duties of hospitality, produced 
some rum. In answer to the inquiry, “ Will you mix it, 
Mr. Wegg?” that gentleman pleasantly rejoined, “I think 
not, sir. On so auspicious an occasion, I prefer to take it in 
the form of a Gum-Tickler.” 

Mr. Boffin, declining rum, being still elevated on his 
pedestal, was in a convenient position to be addressed. Wegg 
having eyed him with an impudent air at leisure, addressed 
him, therefore, while refreshing himself with his dram. 

“ Bof— fin!” 

“ Yes, Wegg,” he answered, coming out of a fit of abstrac- 
tion, with a sigh. 

“ I haven’t mentioned one thing, because it’s a detail that 
comes of course. You must be followed up, you know. You 
must be kept under inspection.” 

“ I don’t quite understand,” said Mr. Boffin. 

“Don’t you?” sneered Wegg. “Where’s your wits. 
Boffin? Till the Mounds is down and this business com- 
pleted, you’re accountable for all the property, recollect. 
Consider yourself accountable to me. Mr. Venus here being 
too milk and watery with you, I am the boy for you.” 

“I’ve been a-thinking,” said Mr. Boffin, in a tone of despon- 
dency, “ that I must keep the knowledge from my old lady.” 

“ The knowledge of the diwision, d’ye mean ? ” inquired 
Wegg, helping himself to a third Gum-Tickler — for he ha 1 
already taken a second. 

“ Yes. If she was to die first of us two she might then 
think all her life, poor thing, that I had got the rest of the 
fortune still, and was saving it.” 

“ I suspect. Boffin,” returned Wegg, shaking his head 
sagaciously, and bestowing a wooden wink upon him, “ that 
you’ve found out some account of some old chap, supposed 
to be a Miser, who got himself the credit of having much 
more money than he had. However, I don’t mind.” 

“ Don’t you see, Wegg? ” Mr. Boffin feelingly represented 
to him: “ don’t you see? My old lady has got so used to the 
property. It would be such a hard surprise.” 


746 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I don’t see it at all/’ blustered Wegg. “ You’ll have as 
much as I shall. And who are you ? ” 

“ But then, again,” Mr. Boffin gently represented, “ my 
old lady has very upright principles.” 

“ Who’s your old lady,” returned Wegg, “ to set herself up 
for having uprighter principles than mine ? ” 

Mr, Boffin seemed a little less patient at this point than at 
any other of the negotiations. But he commanded himself, 
and said tamely enough: “ I think it must be kept from my 
old lady, Wegg.” 

“ Well,” said Wegg, contemptuously, though, perhaps, 
perceiving some hint of danger otherwise, “ keep it from 
your old lady. I ain’t going to tell her. I can have you 
under close inspection without that. I’m as good a man as 
you, and better. Ask me to dinner. Give me the run of 
your ’ouse. I was good enough for you and your old lady 
once, when I helped you out with your weal and hammens. 
W’^as there no Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, 
and Uncle Parker, before you two? ” 

“ Gently, Mr. Wegg, gently,” Venus urged. 

Milk and water-erily you mean, sir,” he returned, with 
some little thickness of speech, in consequence of the Gum • 
Ticklers having tickled it. “ I’ve got him under inspection, 
and I’ll inspect him. 

* Along the line the signal ran, 

England expects as this present naan 
Will keep Boffin to his duty.’ 

— Boffin, I’ll see you home.” 

Mr. Boffin descended with an air of resignation, and gave 
himself up, after taking friendly leave of Mr. Venus. Once 
more. Inspector and Inspected went through the streets 
together, and so arrived at Mr. Boffin’s door. 

But even there, when Mr. Boffin had given his keeper 
good-night, and had let himself in with his key, and had 
softly closed the door, even there and then, the all-powerful 
Silas must needs claim another assertion of his newly- 
asserted power. 

Bof — fin! ” he called through the keyhole. 

** Yes, Wegg,” was the reply through the same channel. 


THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN 747 

Come out. Show yourself again. Let’s have another 
look at you! ” 

Mr. Boffin — ah, how fallen from the high estate of his 
honest simplicity! — opened the door and obeyed. 

“ Go in. You may get to bed now,” said Wegg, with 
a grin. 

The door was hardly closed, when he again called through 
the keyhole : 

“ Bof— fin!” 

‘‘ Yes, Wegg.” 

This time Silas made no reply, but laboured with a will at 
turning an imaginary grindstone outside the keyhole, while 
Mr. Boffin stooped at it within; he then laughed silently, 
and stumped home. 


CHAPTER IV 


A RUNAWAY MATCH 

Cherubic Pa arose with as littler noise as possible from 
beside majestic Ma, one morning early, having a holiday 
before him. Pa and the lovely woman had a rather partic- 
ular appointment to keep. 

Yet Pa and the lovely woman were not going out together. 
Bella was up before four, but had no bonnet on. She was 
waiting at the foot of the stairs — was sitting on the bottom 
stair, in fact — to receive Pa when he came down, but her 
only object seemed to be to get Pa well out of the house. 

“ Your breakfast is ready, sir,” w^hispered Bella, after 
greeting him with a hug, “ and all you have to do is, to 
eat it up and drink it up, and escape. How do you feel. 
Pa?” 

“To the best of my judgment like a housebreaker new to 
the business, my dear, who can’t make himself quite comfort- 
able till he is off the premises.” 

Bella tucked her arm in his with a merry noiseless laugh, 
and they went down to the kitchen on tiptoe; she stopping 
on every separate stair to put the tip of her forefinger on 
her rosy lips, and then lay it on his lips, according to her 
favourite petting way of kissing Pa. 

“ How do you feel, my love? ” asked R. VV., as she gave 
him his breakfast. 

“ I feel as if the Fortune-teller was coming true, dear Pa, 
and the fair little man was turning out as was predicted.” 

“ Ho!. Only the fair little man? ” said her father. 

Bella put another of those finger-seals upon his lips, and 
then said, kneeling down by him as he sat at table: “ Now, 
look here, sir. If you keep well up to the mark this day, 
what do you think you deserve? What did I promise you 
should have, if you were good, upon a certain occasion? ” 


A RUNAWAY MATCH 


749 


“ Upon my word I don’t remember, Precious. Yes, I do, 
though. Wasn’t it one of those beau— tiful tresses?” with 
his caressing hand upon her hair. 

“ Wasn’t it, too! ” returned Bella, pretending to pout. 
“ Upon my word! Do you know, sir, that the Fortune- 
teller would give five thousand guineas (if it was quite con- 
venient to him, which it isn’t) for the lovely piece I have cut 
off for you? You can form no idea, sir, of the number of 
times he kissed quite a scrubby little piece — in comparison 
— that I cut off for him. And he wears it, too, round his 
neck, I can tell you! Near his heart! ” said Bella, nodding. 
“ Ah! very near his heart. However, you have been a good, 
good boy, and you are the best of all the dearest boys that 
ever were, this morning, and here’s the chain I have made of 
it. Pa, and you must let me put it round your neck with my 
own loving hands.” 

As Pa bent his head, she cried over him a little, and then 
said (after having stopped to dry her eyes on his white waist- 
coat, the discovery of which incongruous circumstance made 
her laugh) : “ Now, darling Pa, give me your hands that 
I may fold them together, and do you say after me: My 
little Bella.” 

“ My little Bella,” repeated Pa. 

“ I am very fond of you.” 

“ I am very fond of you, my darling,” said Pa. 

You mustn’t say anything not dictated to you, sir. You 
daren’t do it in your responses at Church, and you mustn’t 
do it in your responses out of Church.” 

“ I withdraw the darling,” said Pa. 

“ That’s a pious boy ! Now again : — You were always — ” 

“You were always,” repeated Pa. 

“ A vexatious ” 

“ No, you weren’t,” said Pa. 

“A vexatious (do you hear, sir?), a vexatious, capricious, 
thankless, troublesome Animal; but I hope you’ll do better 
in the time to come, and I bless you and forgive you! ” Here, 
she quite forgot that it was Pa’s turn to make the responses, 
and clung to his neck. “ Dear Pa, if you knew how much 
I think this morning of what you told me once, about the 
first time of our seeing old Mr. Harmon, when I stamped 


750 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


and screamed and beat you with my detestable little bonnet! 
I feel as if I had been stamping and screaming and beating 
you with my hateful little bonnet, ever since I was born, 
darling! ” 

“ Nonsense, my love. And as to your bonnets, they have 
always been nice bonnets, for they have always become you 
— or you have become them; perhaps it was that — at every 
age.” 

“Did I hurt you much, poor little Pa?” asked Bella, 
laughing (notwithstanding her repentance), with fantastic 
pleasure in the picture, “ when I beat you with my bon- 
net?” 

“ No, my child. Wouldn’t have hurt a fly.” 

“ Ay, but I am afraid I shouldn’t have beat you at all, 
unless I had nieant to hurt you,” said Bella. “ Did I pinch 
your legs. Pa ? ” 

“ Not much, my dear; but I think it’s almost time 
I ’’ 

“ Oh, yes! ” cried Bella. “ If I go on chattering, you’ll be 
taken alive. Fly, Pa, fly! ” 

So they went softly up the kitchen stairs on tiptoe, and 
Bella with her light hand softly removed the fastenings of 
the house door, and Pa, having received a parting hug, made 
off. When he had gone a little way he looked back. Upon 
which, Bella set another of those finger-seals upon the air, 
and thrust out her little foot expressive of the mark. Pa, in 
appropriate action, expressed fidelity to the mark, and made 
off as fast as he could go. 

Bella walked thoughtfully in the garden for an hour and 
more, and then, returning to the bedroom where Lavvy the 
Irrepressible still slumbered, put on a little bonnet of quiet, 
but on the whole of sly appearance, which she had yesterday 
made. “ I am going for a walk, Lavvy,” she said, as she 
stooped down and kissed her. The Irrepressible, with a 
bounce in the bed, and a remark that it wasn’t time to get 
up yet, relapsed into unconsciousness, if she had come out 
of it. 

Behold Bella tripping along the streets, the dearest girl 
afoot under the summer sun! Behold Pa waiting for Bella 
behind a pump, at least three miles from the parental roof- 


A RUNAWAY MATCH 751 

tree. Behold Bella and Pa aboard an early steamboat bound 
for Greenwich. 

Were they expected at Greenwich? Probably. At least, 
Mr. John Rokesmith was on the pier looking out, about a 
couple of hours before the coaly (but to him gold-dusty) 
little steamer got her steam up in London. Probably. At 
least, Mr. John Rokesmith seemed perfectly satisfied when 
he descried them on board. Probably. At least, Bella 
no sooner stepped ashore than she took Mr. John Roke- 
smith’s arm, without evincing surprise, and the two walked 
away together with an ethereal air of happiness which, as it 
were, wafted up from the earth and drew up after them a 
gruff and glum old pensioner to see it out. Two wooden legs 
had this gruff and glum old pensioner, and, a minute before 
Bella stepped out of the boat, and drew that confiding little 
arm of hers through Rokesmith’s, he had had no object in 
life but tobacco, and not enough of that. Stranded was Gruff 
and Glum in a harbour of everlasting mud, when all in an 
instant Bella floated him, and away he went. 

Say, cherubic parent taking the lead, in what direction do 
we steer first? With some such inquiry in his thoughts. 
Gruff and Glum, stricken by so sudden an interest that he 
perked his neck and looked over the intervening people, as if 
he were trying to stand on tiptoe with his two wooden legs, 
took an observation of R. W. There was no first ” in the 
case. Gruff and Glum made out; the cherubic parent was 
bearing down and crowding on direct for Greenwich Church, 
to see his relations. 

For Gruff and Glum, though most events acted on him 
simply as tobacco-stoppers, pressing down and condensing 
the quids within him, might be imagined to trace a family 
resemblance between the cherubs in the church architecture, 
and the cherub in the white waistcoat. Some resemblance 
of old Valentines, wherein a cherub, less appropriately 
attired for a proverbially uncertain climate, had been seen 
conducting lovers to the altar, might have been fancied to 
inflame the ardour of his timber toes. Be it as it might, he 
gave his moorings the slip, and followed in chase. 

The cherub went before, all beaming smiles; Bella and 
John Rokesmith followed; Gruff and Glum stuck to them 


752 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


like wax. For years the wings of his mind had gone to 
look after the legs of his body; but Bella had brought 
them back for him per steamer, and they were spread 
again. 

He was a slow sailer on a wind of happiness, but he took 
a cross cut for the rendezvous, and pegged away as if he 
were scoring furiously at cribbage. When the shadow of 
the church-poi^ch swallowed them up, victorious Gruff and 
Glum likewise presented himself to be swallowed up. And 
by this time the cherubic parent was so fearful of surprise, 
that, but for the two wooden legs on which Gruff and Glum 
was reassuringly mounted, his conscience might have intro- 
duced, in the person of that pensioner, his own stately lady 
disguised, arrived at Greenwich in a car and griffins, like 
the spiteful Fairy at the christenings of the Princesses, to 
do something dreadful to the marriage service. And truly 
he had a momentary reason to be pale of face, and to whisper 
to Bella, “You don’t think that can be your Ma; do you, my 
dear ? ” on account of a mysterious rustling and a stealthy 
movement somewhere in the remote neighbourhood of the 
organ, though it was gone directly and was heard no more. 
Albeit, it was heard of afterwards, as will afterwards be read 
in this veracious register of marriage. 

Who taketh? I, John, and so do I, Bella. Who giveth? 
I, R. W. Forasmuch, Gruff and Glum, as John and Bella 
have consented together in holy wedlock, you may (in short) 
consider it done, and withdraw your two wooden legs from 
this temple. To the foregoing purport, the Minister speak- 
ing, as directed by the Rubric, to the People, selectly re- 
presented in the present instance by G. and G. above 
mentioned. 

And now, the church-porch having swallowed up Bella 
Wilfer for ever and ever, had it not in its power to relin- 
quish that young woman, but slid into the happy sunlight, 
Mrs. John Rokesmith instead. And long on the bright steps 
stood Gruff and Glum, looking after the pretty bride, with 
a narcotic consciousness of having dreamed a dream. 

After which, Bella took out from her pocket a little letter, 
and read it aloud to Pa and John: this being a true copy 
of the same: 


A RUNAWAY MATCH 


753 


Dearest Ma, 

“ I hope you won’t be angry, but I am most happily 
married to Mr. John Rokesmith, who loves me better than 
I can ever deserve, except by loving him with all my heart. 
I thought it best not to mention it beforehand, in case it 
should cause any little difference at home. Please tell darling 
Pa. With love to Lavvy, 

“ Ever, dearest Ma, your affectionate daughter, 

“Bella 

“ (P.S. — Rokesmith).” 

Then John Rokesmith put the queen’s countenance on the 
letter — when had Her Gracious Majesty looked so benign as 
on that blessed morning! — and then Bella popped it into 
the post office, and said merrily, “ Now, dearest Pa, you are 
safe, and will never be taken alive I ” 

Pa was, at first, in the stirred depths of his conscience, so 
far from sure of being safe yet, that he made out majestic 
matrons lurking in ambush among the harmless trees of 
Greenwich Park, and seemed to see a stately countenance 
tied up in a well-known pocket-handkerchief glooming 
down at him from a window of the Observatory, where 
the Familiars of the Astronomer Royal nightly outwatch 
the winking stars. But the minutes passing on and no 
Mrs. Wilfer in the flesh appearing, he became more confident, 
and so repaired with good heart and appetite to Mr. and 
Mrs. John Rokesmith’s cottage on Blackheath, where break- 
fast was ready. 

A modest little cottage but a bright and a fresh, and on 
the snowy table-cloth the prettiest of little breakfasts. In 
waiting, too, like an attendant summer breeze, a fluttering 
young damsel, all pink knd ribbons, blushing as if she had 
been married instead of Bella, and yet asserting the triumph 
of her sex over John and Pa, in an exulting and exalted 
flurry: as who should say, “ This is what you must all come 
to, gentlemen, when we choose to bring you to book.” This 
same young damsel was Bella’s serving-maid, and unto her 
did deliver a bunch of keys, commanding treasures in the way 
of drysaltery, groceries, jams and pickles, the investigation of 
which made pastime after breakfast, when Bella declared that 


754 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Pa must taste everything, John dear, or it will never be 
lucky,” and when Pa had all sorts of things poked into his 
mouth, and didn’t quite know what to do with them when 
they were put there. 

Then they, all three, out for a charming ride, and for a 
charming stroll among heath and bloom, and there behold the 
identical Gruff and Glum with his wooden legs horizontally 
disposed before him, apparently sitting meditating on the 
vicissitudes of life! To whom said Bella, in her light-hearted 
surprise; “ Oh! How do you do again? What a dear old 
pensioner you are! ” To which Gruff and Glum responded 
that he see her married this morning, my Beauty, and that 
if it warn’t a liberty he wished her ji and the fairest of fair 
wind and weather; further, in a general way requesting to 
know what cheer? and scrambling up on his two wooden 
legs to salute, hat in hand, ship-shape, with the gallantry of 
a man-of-war’s-man and a heart of oak. 

It was a pleasant sight, in the midst of the golden bloom, 
to see this salt old Gruff and Glum waving his shovel hat at 
Bella, while his thin white hair flowed free, as if she had 
once more launched him into blue water again. You are 
a charming old pensioner,” said Bella, “ and I am so happy 
that I wish I could make you happy, too.” Answered Gruff 
and Glum, “ Give me leave to kiss your hand, my Lovely, 
and it’s done ! ” So it was done to the general content- 
ment; and if Gruff and Glum didn’t in the course of the 
afternoon splice the main brace, it was not for want of the 
means of inflicting that outrage on the feelings of the Infant 
Bands of Hope. 

But the marriage dinner was the crowning success, for 
what had bride and bridegroom plotted to do, but to have 
and to hold that dinner in the very room of the very hotel 
where Pa and the lovely woman had once dined together! 
Bella sat between Pa and John, and divided her attentions 
pretty equally, but felt it necessary (in the waiter’s absence 
before dinner) to remind Pa that she was his lovely woman 
no longer. 

“ I am well aware of it, my dear,” returned the cherub, 

and I resign you willingly.” 

“ Willingly, sir? You ought to be broken-hearted.” 








A RUNAWAY MATCH 755 

“ So I should be, my dear, if I thought that I was going 
to lose you.” 

“ But you know you are not; don’t you, poor dear Pa? 
You know that you have only made a new relation who will 
be as fond of you and as thankful to you — for my sake and 
your own sake both — as I am ; don’t you, dear little Pa ? 
Look here, Pa! ” Bella put her finger on her own lip, and 
then on Pa’s, then on her own lip again, and then on her 
husband’s. “ Now we are a partnership of three, dear 
Pa.” 

The appearance of dinner here cut Bella short in one of 
her disappearances: the more effectually, because it was put 
on under the auspices of a solemn gentleman in black clothes 
and a white cravat, who looked much more like a clergyman 
than the clergyman, and seemed to have mounted a great 
deal higher in the church: not to say, scaled the steeple. 
This dignitary, conferring in secrecy with John Rokesmith 
on the subject of punch and wines, bent his head as though 
stooping to the Papistical practice of receiving auricular 
confession. Likewise, on John’s offering a suggestion which 
didn’t meet his views, his face became overcast and reproach- 
ful, as enjoining penance. 

What a dinner! Specimens of all the fishes that swim 
in the sea, surely had swum their way to it, and if samples 
of the fishes of divers colours that made a speech in the 
Arabian Nights (quite a ministerial explanation in respect 
of cloudiness), and then jumped out of the frying-pan, were 
not to be recognised, it was only because they had all become 
of one hue by being cooked in batter among the whitebait. 
And the dishes being seasoned with Bliss — an article which 
they are sometimes out of, at Greenwich — were of perfect 
flavour, and the golden drinks had been bottled in the golden 
age and hoarding up their sparkles ever since. 

The best of it was, that Bella and John and the cherub had 
made a covenant that they would not reveal to mortal eyes 
any appearance whatever of being a wedding party. Now" 
the supervising dignitary, the Archbishop of Greenwich, 
knew this as well as if he had performed the nuptial cere- 
mony. And the loftiness with which his Grace entered 
into their confidence without being invited, and insisted on 


756 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


a show of keeping the waiters out of it, was the crowning 
glory of the entertainment. 

There was an innocent young waiter of a slender form and 
with weakish legs, as yet unversed in the wiles of waiter- 
hood, and but too evidently of a romantic temperament, and 
deeply (it were not too much to add hopelessly) in love with 
some young female not aware of his merit. This guileless 
youth, descrying the position of affairs, which even his 
innocence could not mistake, limited his waiting to languish- 
ing admiringly against the sideboard when Bella didn't want 
anything, and swooping at her when she did. Him, his 
Grace the Archbishop perpetually obstructed, cutting him 
out with his elbow in the moment of success, dispatching 
him in degrading quest of melted butter, and, when by any 
chance he got hold of any dish worth having, bereaving him 
of it, and ordering him to stand back. 

“ Pray excuse him, madam," said the Archbishop in a low 
stately voice; “he is a very young man on liking, and we 
don't like him." 

This induced John Rokesmith to observe — by way of 
making the thing more natural — “ Bella, my love, this is 
so much more successful than any of our past anniversa- 
ries, that I think we must keep our future anniversaries 
here." 

Whereunto Bella replied, with probably the least success- 
ful attempt at looking matronly that ever was seen: “ Indeed, 
I think so, John, dear." 

Here the Archbishop of Greenwich coughed a stately cough 
to attract the attention of three of his ministers present, and 
staring at them, seemed to say: “ I call upon you by your 
fealty to believe this! " 

With his own hands he afterwards put on the dessert, as 
remarking to the three guests, “ The period has now arrived 
at which we can dispense with the assistance of those fellows 
who are not in our confidence," and would have retired with 
complete dignity but for a daring action issuing from the 
misguided brain of the young man on liking. He finding, 
by ill-fortune, a piece of orange-flower somewhere in the 
lobbies, now approached undetected with the same in a 
finger-glass, and placed it on Bella’s right hand. The Arch- 


A RUNAWAY MATCH 757 

bishop instantly ejected and excommunicated him; but the 
thing was done. 

“ I trust, madam,” said his Grace, returning alone, “ that 
you will have the kindness to overlook it, in consideration 
of its being the act of a very young man who is merely here 
on liking, and who will never answer.” 

With that, he solemnly bowed and retired, and they all 
burst into laughter, long and merry. “ Disguise is of no 
use,” said Bella; “ they all find me out; I think it must be. 
Pa and John dear, because I look so happy! ” 

Her husband feeling it necessary at this point to demand 
one of those mysterious disappearances on Bella’s part, she 
dutifully obeyed; saying in a softened voice from her place 
of concealment: 

“You remember how we talked about the ships that day, 
Pa?” 

“Yes, my dear.” 

“ Isn’t it strange, now, to think that there was no John 
in all the ships, Pa ? ” 

“ Not at all, my dear.’^ 

“Oh, Pal Not at all?” 

“No, my dear. How can we tell what coming people are 
aboard the ships that may be sailing to us now from the 
unknown seas! ” 

Bella remaining invisible and silent, her father remained 
at his dessert and wine, until he remembered it was time 
for him to get home to Holloway. “ Though I positively 
cannot tear myself away,” he cherubically added, “ — it 
would be a sin — without drinking to many, many happy 
returns of this most happy day.” 

“Hear! ten thousand times!” cried John. “I fill my 
glass and my precious wife’s.” 

“ Gentlemen,” said the cherub, inaudibly addressing, in his 
Anglo-Saxon tendency to throw his feelings into the form of 
a speech, the boys down below, who were bidding against 
each other to put their heads in the mud for sixpence : “ Gen- 
tlemen — and Bella and John — you will readily suppose 
that it is not my intention to trouble you with many obser- 
vations on the present occasion. You will also at once infer 
the nature and even the terms of the toast I am about to 


758 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


propose on the present occasion. Gentlemen — and Bella 
and John — the present occasion is an occasion fraught with 
feelings that I cannot trust myself to express. But, gentle- 
men — and Bella and John — for the part I have had in it, 
for the confidence you have placed in me, and for the affec- 
tionate good-nature and kindness with which you have 
determined not to find me in the way, when I am well aware 
that I cannot be otherwise than in it more or less, I do most 
heartily thank you. Gentlemen — and Bella and John — 
my love to you, and may we meet, as on the present occasion, 
on many future occasions ; that is to say, gentlemen — 
and Bella and John — on many happy returns of the present 
happy occasion.” 

Having thus concluded his address, the amiable cherub 
embraced his daughter, and took his flight to the steamboat 
which was to convey him to London, and was then lying at 
the floating pier, doing its best to bump the same to bits. 
But the happy couple were not going to part with him in 
that way, and before he had been on board two minutes, 
there they were, looking down at him from the wharf above. 

“ Pa, dear! ” cried Bella, beckoning him with her parasol 
to approach the side, and bending gracefully to whisper. 

“Yes, my darling.” 

“ Did I beat you much with that horrid little bonnet. 
Pa?” 

“ Nothing to speak of, my dear.” 

“ Did I pinch your legs. Pa? ” 

“ Only nicely, my pet.” 

“You are sure you quite forgive me. Pa? Please, Pa, 
please forgive me quite!” Half laughing at him and half 
crying to him, Bella besought him in the prettiest manner; 
in a manner so engaging and so playful and so natural, that 
her cherubic parent made a coaxing face as if she had never 
grown up, and said, “ What a silly little Mouse it is! ” 

“ But you do forgive me that, and everything else; don’t 
you. Pa?” 

“ Yes, my dearest.” 

“And you don’t feel solitary or neglected, going aw?iy by 
yourself; do you. Pa? ” 

“ Lord bless you ! No, my Life ! ” 


A RUNAWAY MATCH 


759 


“ Good-bye, dearest Pa. Good-bye!” 

“ Good-bye, my darling! Take her away, my dear John. 
Take her home! ” 

So, she leaning on her husband’s arm., they turned home- 
ward by a rosy path which the gracious sun struck out for 
them in its setting. And oh, there are days in this life, worth 
life and worth death. And oh, what a bright old song it 
is, that oh, ’tis lov«, ’tis love, ’tis love, that makes the world 
go round! 


CHAPTER V 


CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S^ BRIDE 

The impressive gloom with which Mrs. Wilfer received her 
husband on his return from the wedding, knocked so hard at 
the door of the cherubic conscience, and likewise so impaired 
the firmness of the cherubic legs, that the culprit’s tottering 
> condition of mind and body might have roused suspicion in 
less occupied persons than the grimly heroic lady. Miss 
Lavinia, and that esteemed friend of the family, Mr. George 
Sampson. But the attention of all three being fully pos- 
sessed by the main fact of the marriage, they had happily 
none to bestow on the guilty conspirator; to which fortunate 
circumstance he owed the escape for which he was in nowise 
indebted to himself. 

“You do not, R. W.,” said Mrs. Wilfer from her stately 
corner, “ inquire for your daughter Bella.” 

“ To be sure, my dear,” he returned, with a most flagrant 
assumption of unconsciousness, “ I did omit it. How — or 
perhaps I should rather say where — is Bella ? ” 

“ Not here,” Mrs. Wilfer proclaimed, with folded arms. 

The cherub faintly muttered something to the abortive 
effect of “ Oh, indeed, my dear! ” 

“Not here,” repeated Mrs. Wilfer, in a stern sonorous voice. 
“ In a word, R. W., you have no daughter Bella.” 

“ No daughter Bella, my dear? ” 

“ No. Your daughter Bella,” said Mrs. Wilfer, with a 
lofty air of never having had the least copartnership in that 
young lady: of whom she now made reproachful mention as 
an article of luxury which her husband had set up entirely 
on his own account, and in direct opposition to her advice : 
“ — your daughter Bella has bestowed herself upon a Mendi- 
cant.” 

“ Good gracious, my dear! ” 


CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE 761 

“ Show your father his daughter Bella’s letter, Lavinia,” 
said Mrs. Wilfer, in her monotonous Act of Parliament tone, 
and waving her hand. “ I think your father will admit it 
to be documentary proof of what I tell him. I believe your 
father is acquainted with his daughter Bella’s writing. But 
I do not know. He may tell you he is not. Nothing will 
surprise me.” 

“ Posted at Greenwich, and dated this morning,” said the 
Irrepressible, flouncing at her father in handing him the 
evidence. “ Hopes Ma won’t be angry, but is happily 
married to Mr. John Rokesmith, and didn’t mention it before- 
hand to avoid words, and please tell darling you, and love to 
me, and I should like to know what you’d have said if any 
other unmarried member of the family had done it! ” 

He read the letter, and faintly exclaimed, “ Dear me! ” 

“You may well say Dear me!” rejoined Mrs. Wilfer, 
in a deep tone. Upon which encouragement he said it again, 
though scarcely with the success he had expected; for the 
scornful lady then remarked, with extreme bitterness: “ You 
said that before.” 

“ It’s very surprising. But I suppose, my dear,” hinted the 
cherub, as he folded the letter after a disconcerting silence, 
“ that we must make the best of it! Would you object to 
my pointing out, my dear, that Mr. John Rokesmith is not 
(so far as I am acquainted with him), strictly speaking, a 
Mendicant.” 

“Indeed?” returned Mrs. Wilfer, with an awful air of 
politeness. “ Truly so ? I was not aware that Mr. John 
Rokesmith was a gentleman of landed property. But I am 
much relieved to hear it.” 

“ I doubt if you have heard it, my dear,” the cherub sub- 
mitted with hesitation. 

“ Thank you,” said Mrs. Wilfer, “ I make false statements, 
it appears ? So be it. If my daughter flies in my face, surely 
my husband may. The one thing is not more unnatural 
than the other. There seems a fitness in the arrangement. 
By all means ! ” Assuming, with a shiver of resignation, a 
deadly cheerfulness. 

But here the Irrepressible skirmished into the conflict, 
dragging the reluctant form of Mr. Sampson after her. 


762 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Ma,” interposed the young lady, “ I must say I think it 
would be much better if you would keep to the point, and not 
hold forth about people^s flying into people’s faces, which is 
nothing more nor less than impossible nonsense.” 

“ How! ” exclaimed Mrs. Wilfer, knitting her dark 
brows. 

“ Just im-possible nonsense, Ma/’ returned Lavvy, “ and 
George Sampson knows it is, as well as I do.” 

Mrs. Wilfer suddenly becoming petrified, fixed her indig- 
nant eyes upon the wretched George: who, divided between 
the support due from him to his love, and the support due 
from him to his love’s mamma, supported nobody, not even 
himself. 

“ The true point is,” pursued Lavinia, ‘‘ that Bella has 
behaved in a most unsisterly way to me, and might have 
severely compromised me with George and with George’s 
family, by making off and getting married in this very low 
and disreputable manner — with some pew-opener or other, 
I suppose, for a bridesmaid — when she ought to have con 
fided in me, and ought to have said, ‘ If, Lavvy, you consider it 
due to your engagement with George, that you should counte 
nance the occasion by being present, then, Lavvy, 1 beg you 
to he present, keeping my secret from Ma and Pa.’ As of 
course I should have done.” 

“ As of course you would have done ? Ingrate I ” exclaimeJ 
Mrs. Wilfer. “ Viper! ” 

“ I say! You know, ma’am. Upon my honour you 
mustn’t,” Mr, Sampson remonstrated, shaking his head 
seriously. “ With the highest respect for you, ma’am, upon 
my life you mustn’t. No really, you know. When a man 
with the feelings of a gentleman finds himself engaged to a 
young lady, and it comes (even on the part of a member of 
the family) to vipers, you know! — I would merely put it to 
your own good feeling, you know,” said Mr. Sampson, in 
rather lame conclusion. 

Mrs. Wilfer’s baleful stare at the young gentleman i^ 
acknowledgment of his obliging interference was of such i''. 
nature that Miss Lavinia burst into tears, and caught him 
round the neck for his protection. 

“ My own unnatural mother,” screamed the young lady. 


CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE 763 

“ wants to annihilate George! But you shan’t be annihilated, 
George. I’ll die first! ” 

Mr. Sampson, in the arms of his mistress, still struggled 
to shake his head at Mrs. Wilfer, and to remark: “ With 
every sentiment of respect for you, you know, ma’am — vipers 
really doesn’t do you credit.” 

“You shall not be annihilated, George!” cried Miss 
Lavinia. “ Ma shall destroy me first, and then she’ll be con- 
tented. Oh, oh, oh! Have I lured George from his happy 
home to expose him to this? George dear, be free! Leave 
me, ever dearest George, to Ma and to my fate. Give my 
love to your aunt, George dear, and implore her not to 
curse the viper that has crossed your path and blighted your 
existence. Oh, oh, oh! ” The young lady, who, hysterically 
speaking, was only just come of age, and had never gone off 
yet, here fell into a highly creditable crisis, which, regarded 
as a first performance, was very successful; Mr. Sampson, 
bending over the body meanwhile, in a state of distraction, 
which induced him to address Mrs. Wilfer in the inconsistent 
expressions: “ Demon — with the highest respect for you — 
behold your work! ” 

The cherub stood helplessly rubbing his chin and looking 
on, but on the whole was inclined to welcome this diversion 
as one in which, by reason of the absorbent properties of 
hysterics, the previous question would become absorbed. 
And so, indeed, it proved, for the Irrepressible gradually 
coming to herself, and asking with wild emotion, “ George 
dear, are you safe ? ” and further, “ George love, what has 
happened ? Where is Ma ? ” Mr. Sampson, with words of 
comfort, raised her prostrate form, and handed her to Mrs. 
Wilfer as if the young lady were something in the nature of 
refreshments. Mrs. Wilfer with dignity partaking of the 
refreshments, by kissing her once on the brow (as if accept- 
ing an oyster), Miss Lavvy, tottering, returned to the pro- 
tection of Mr. Sampson: to whom she said, “ George dear, 
I am afraid I have been foolish; but I am still a little weak 
and giddy; don’t let go my hand, George! ” And whom she 
afterwards greatly agitated at intervals, by giving utterance, 
when least expected, to a sound between a sob and a bottle 
of soda-water, that seemed to rend the bosom of her frock. 


764 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Among the most remarkable effects of this crisis may be 
mentioned its having, when peace was restored, an inexplicable 
moral influence, of an elevating kind, on Miss Lavinia, Mrs 
Wilfer, and Mr. George Sampson, from which R W. was 
altogether excluded, as an outsider and non-sympathiser. 
Miss Lavinia assumed a modest air of having distinguished 
herself; Mrs. Wilfer, a serene air of forgiveness and resig- 
nation; Mr. Sampson, an air of having been improved and 
chastened The influence pervaded the spirit in which they 
returned to the previous question. 

“ George dear,” said Lawy, with a melancholy smile, 
“ after what has passed, I am sure Ma will tell Pa that he 
may tell Bella we shall all be fflad to see her and her hus- 
band.” 

Mr. Sampson said he was sure of it too; murmuring how 
eminently he respected Mrs. Wilfer, and ever must, and ever 
would. Never more eminently, he added, than after what 
had passed. 

“ Far be it from me,” said Mrs Wilfer, making deep 
proclamation from her comer, to run counter to the feelings 
of a child of mine, and of a Youth,” Mr. Sampson hardly 
seemed to like that word, who is the object of her maiden 
preference I may feel — nay, know — that I have been de- 
luded and deceived. I may feel — nay, know — that I have 
been set aside and passed over. I may feel — nay, know — 
that after having so far overcome my repugnance towards Mr 
and Mrs Boffin as to receive them under this roof, and to con- 
sent to your daughter Bella’s,” here turning to her husband, 
“ residing under theirs, it were well if your daughter Bella,” 
again turning to her husband, “ had profited in a worldly 
point of view by a connection so distasteful, so disreputable. 
I may feel — nay, know — that in uniting herself to Mr. 
Rokesmith she has united herself to one who is, in spite of 
shallow sophistry, a Mendicant. And I may feel well assured 
that your daughter Bella,” again turning to her husband, “does 
not exalt her family by becoming a Mendicant’s bride. But 
I suppress what I feel, and say nothing of it ” 

Mr. Sampson murmured that this was the sort of thing 
you might expect from one who had ever in her own family 
been an example and never an outrage. And ever more so 


CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE 765 

(Mr. Sampson added, with some degree of obscurity), and 
never more so, than in and through what had passed. He 
must take the liberty of adding, that what was true of the 
mother was true of the youngest daughter, and that he 
could never forget the touching feelings that the conduct of 
both had awakened within him. In conclusion, he did hope 
that there wasn’t a man with a beating heart who was 
capable of something that remained undescribed, in conse- 
quence of Miss Lavinia’s stopping him as he reeled in his 
speech. 

“ Therefore, R. W.,” said Mrs. Wilfer, resuming her dis- 
course and turning to her lord again, “ let your daughter 
Bella come when she will, and she will be received. So,” 
after a short pause, and an air of having taken medicine in it, 
“ so will her husband.” 

“ And I beg, Pa,” said Lavinia, that you will not tell 
Bella what I have undergone. It can do no good, and it 
might cause her to reproach herself.” 

“ My dearest girl,” urged Mr. Sampson, “ she ought to 
know it.” 

“ No, George,” said Lavinia, in a tone of resolute self- 
denial. No, dearest George, let it be buried in oblivion.” 

Mr. Sampson considered that “ too noble.” 

‘‘ Nothing is too noble, dearest George,” returned Lavinia. 
“ And, Pa, I hope you will be careful not to refer before 
Bella, if you can help it, to my engagement to George. 
It might seem like reminding her of her having cast herself 
away. And I hope. Pa, that you will think it equally right 
to avoid mentioning George’s rising prospects when Bella is 
present. It might seem like taunting her with her own poor 
fortunes. Let me ever remember that I am her younger 
sister, and ever spare her painful contrasts, wTich could not 
but wound her sharply.” 

Mr. Sampson expressed his belief that such was the de- 
meanour of Angels. Miss Lavvy replied with solemnity. 

No, dearest George, I am but too well aware that I am 
merely human.” 

Mrs. Wilfer, for her part, still further improved the oc- 
casion by sitting with her eyes fastened on her husband, 
like two great black notes of interrogation, severely inquiring, 


766 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Are you looking into your breast? Do you deserve your 
blessings ? Can you lay your hand upon your heart and say 
that you are worthy of so hysterical a daughter? I do not 
ask you if you are worthy of such a wife — put Me out 
of the question — but are you sufficiently conscious of, and 
thankful for, the pervading moral grandeur of the family 
spectacle on which you are gazing? These inquiries proved 
very harassing to R. W., who, besides being a little disturbed 
by wine, was in perpetual terror of committing himself by 
the utterance of stray words that would betray his guilty 
foreknowledge. However, the scene being over, and — all 
things considered — well over, he sought refuge in a doze; 
which gave his lady immense offence. 

Can you think of your daughter Bella, and sleep?” she 
disdainfully inquired. 

To which he mildly answered, “Yes, I think I can, my 
dear.” 

“ Then,” said Mrs. Wilfer, with solemn indignation, “ I 
would recommend you, if you have a human feeling, to retire 
to bed.” 

“ Thank you, my dear,” he replied; “ I think it is the 
best place for me.” And with these unsympathetic words 
very gladly withdrew. 

Within a few weeks afterwards, the Mendicant’s bride 
(arm-in-arm with the Mendicant) came to tea, in fulfilment 
of an engagement made through the father. And the way 
in which the Mendicant’s bride dashed at the unassailable 
position so considerately to be held by Miss Lavvy, and 
scattered the whole of the works in all directions in a moment, 
was triumphant. 

“ Dearest Ma,” cried Bella, running into the room with a 
radiant face, “ how do you do, dearest Ma ? ” And then 
embraced her joyously. “ And Lavvy darling, how do 
you do, and how’s George Sampson, and how is he getting on, 
and when are you going to be married, and how rich are 
you going to grow? You must tell me all about it, Lavvy 
dear, immediately. John love, kiss Ma and Lavvy, and 
then we shall all be at home and comfortable.” 

Mrs. Wilfer stared, but was helpless. Miss Lavinia stared, 
but was helpless. Apparently with no compunction, and 


CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE 767 

assuredly with no ceremony, Bella tossed her bonnet away, 
and sat down to make the tea. 

“ Dearest Ma and Lavvy, you both take sugar, I know. 
And, Pa (you good little Pa), you don’t take milk. John 
does. I didn’t before I was married; but I do now, because 
John does. John dear, did you kiss Ma and Lavvy? Oh, 
you did! Quite correct, John dear; but I didn’t see you do 
it, so I asked. Cut some bread and butter, John, that’s a 
love Ma likes it doubled. And now you must tell me, 
dearest Ma and Lavvy, upon your words and honours! 
didn’t you for a moment — just a moment — think I was a 
dreadful little wretch when I wrote to say I had run away? ” 

Before Mrs Wilfer could wave her gloves, the Mendicant’s 
bride in her merriest affectionate manner went on again. 

“ I think it must have made you rather cross, dear Ma 
and Lavvy, and I know I deserved that you should be very 
cross. But you see I had been such a heedless, heartless 
creature, and had led you so to expect that I should marry 
for money, and so to make sure that I was incapable of 
marrying for love, that I thought you couldn’t believe me. 
Because, you see, you didn’t know how much of Good, 
Good, Good, I had learnt from John. Well! So I was sly 
about it, and ashamed of what you supposed me to be, and 
fearful that we couldn’t understand one another and might 
come to words, which we should all be sorry for afterwards, 
and so I said to John that if he liked to take me without 
any fuss, he might. And as he did like, I let him. And 
we were married at Greenwich Church in the presence of 
nobody — except an unknown individual who dropped in,” 
here her eyes sparkled more brightly, “ and half a pensioner. 
And now, isn’t it nice, dearest Ma and Lavvy, to know that 
no words have been said which any of us can be sorry for, 
and that we are all the best of friends at the pleasantest 
of teas! ” 

Having got up and kissed them again, she slipped back to 
her chair (after a loop on the road to squeeze her husband 
round the neck) and again went on. 

“ And now you will naturally want to know, dearest Ma 
and Lavvy, how we live, and what we have got to live upon. 
Well! And so we live on Blackheath, in the charm — ingest 


768 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


of dolls’ houses, de — lightfully furnished, and we have a 
clever little servant, who is de — cidedly pretty, and we are 
economical and orderly, and do everything by clockwork, 
and we have a hundred and fifty pounds a year, and we have 
all we want, and more. And lastly, if you would like to 
know in confidence, as perhaps you may, what is my opinion 
of my husband, my opinion is — that I almost love him! ” 

“ And if you would like to know in confidence, as perhaps 
you may,” said her husband, smiling, as he stood by her 
side, without her having detected his approach, “ my opinion 

of my wife, my opinion is ” But Bella started up, and 

})ut her hand upon his lips. 

'‘Stop, sir! No, John dear! Seriously! Please not yet 
awhile! I want to be something so much worthier than the 
doll in the doll’s house.” 

" My darling, are you not? ” 

“ Not half, not a quarter, so much worthier as I hope you 
may some day find me! Try me through some reverse, 
John — try me through some trial — and tell them after that^ 
what you think of me.” 

“ I will, my Life,” said John. “ I promise it.” 

“ That’s my dear John. And you won’t speak a word 
now; will you?” 

“And I won’t,” said John, with a very expressive look of 
admiration around him, “ speak a word now! ” 

She laid her laughing cheek upon his breast to thank him, 
and said, looking at the rest of them sideways out of her 
bright eyes: “ I’ll go further. Pa and Ma and Lavvy. John 
don’t suspect it — he had no idea of it — but I quite love 
him! ” 

Even Mrs. Wilfer relaxed under the influence of her 
married daughter, and seemed in a majestic manner to imply 
remotely that if R. W, had been a more deserving object, 
she too might have condescended to come down from her 
pedestal for his beguilement. Miss Lavinia, on the other 
hand, had strong doubts of the policy of the course of treat- 
ment, and whether it might not spoil Mr. Sampson, if ex- 
perimented on in the case of that young gentleman. R. W. 
himself was for his part convinced that he was father of 
one of the most charming of girls, and that Rokesmith wa« 


CONCERNING THE MENDICANT^S BRIDE 


769 


the most favoured of men; which opinion, if propounded to 
him, Rokesmith would probably not have contested. 

The newly-married pair left early, so that they might 
walk at leisure to their starting-place from London, for 
Greenwich. At first they were very cheerful and talked 
much; but after a while, Bella fancied that her husband was 
turning somewhat thoughtful. So she asked him: 

“ John dear, what’s the matter? ” 

“ Matter, my love? ” 

“ Won’t you tell me,” said Bella, looking up into his face, 
“ what you are thinking of? ” 

” There’s not much in the thought, my soul. I was think- 
ing whether you wouldn’t like me to be rich ? ” 

” You rich, John? ” repeated Bella, shrinking a little. 

“ I mean, really rich. Say, as rich as Mr. Boffin. You 
would like that ? ” 

“ I should be almost afraid to try, John dear. Was he 
much the better for his wealth? Was I much the better 
for the little part I once had in it ? ” 

” But all people are not the worse for riches, my own.” 

“ Most people ? ” Bella musingly suggested with raised 
eyebrows. 

“ Nor even most people, it may be hoped. If you were 
rich, for instance, you would have a great power of doing 
good to others.” 

“Yes, sir, for instance,” Bella playfully rejoined; “but 
should I exercise the power, for instance? And again, sir, 
for instance; should I, at the same time, have a great power 
of doing harm to myself ? ” 

Laughing and pressing her arm, he retorted: “ But still, 
again for instance ; would you exercise that power ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said Bella, thoughtfully shaking her head. 
“ I hope not. I think not. But it’s so easy to hope not, 
and think not, without the riches.” 

‘ ‘ Why don’t you say, my darling — instead of that phrase 
— being poor ? ” he asked, looking earnestly at her. 

“ Why don’t I say, being poor? Because I am not poor. 
Dear John, it’s not possible that you suppose I think we are 

? yy 

“ I do, my love! ” 


770 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Oh, John!” 

“ Understand me, sweetheart. I know that I am rich 
beyond all wealth in having you; but I think of you, and 
think for you. In such a dress as you are wearing now, you 
first charmed me, and in no dress could you ever look, to 
my thinking, more graceful or more beautiful. But you 
have admired many finer dresses this very day; and is it 
not natural that I wish I could give them to you ? ” 

“ It’s very nice that you should wish it, John. It brings 
these tears of grateful pleasure into my eyes, to hear you say 
so with such tenderness. But I don’t want them.” 

“ Again,” he pursued, “ we are now walking through the 
muddy streets. I love those pretty feet so dearly that I feel 
as if I could not bear the dirt to soil the sole of your shoe. 
Is it not natural that I wish you could ride in a carriage ? ” 
“ It’s very nice,” said Bella, glancing downward at the 
feet in question, “ to know that you admire them so much, 
John dear, and since you do, I am sorry that these shoes are a 
full size too large. But I don’t want a carriage, believe 
me.” 

“ You 'would like one, if you could have one, Bella? ” 

“ I shouldn’t like it for its own sake, half so well as such 
a wish for it. Dear John, your wishes are as real to me as 
the wishes in the Fairy story, that were all fulfilled as soon 
as spoken. Wish me everything that you can wish for the 
woman you dearly love, and I have as good as got it, John. 
I have better than got it, John! ” 

They were not the less happy for such talk, and home 
was not the less home for coming after it. Bella was fast 
developing a perfect genius for home. All the loves and 
graces seemed (her husband thought) to have taken domestic 
service with her, and to help her to make home engaging. 

Her married life glided happily on. She was all alone 
all day, for after an early breakfast her husband repaired 
every morning to the City, and did not return until their 
late dinner hour. He was “ in a China house,” he explained 
to Bella: which she found quite satisfactory, without pur- 
suing the China house into minuter details than a wholesale 
vision of tea, rice, odd-smelling silks, carved boxes, and 
tight-eyed people in more than double-soled shoes, with 


CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE 


771 


their pigtails pulling their heads of hair off, painted on trans- 
parent porcelain. She always walked with her husband to 
the railroad, and was always there again to meet him; her 
old coquettish ways a little sobered down (but not much), 
and her dress as daintily managed as if she managed nothing 
else. But, John gone to business and Bella returned home, 
the dress would be lain aside, trim little wrappers and aprons 
would be substituted, and Bella, putting back her hair with 
both hands, as if she were making the most business-like 
arrangements for going dramatically distracted, would enter 
on the household affairs of the day. Such weighing and 
mixing and chopping and grating, such dusting and washing 
and polishing, such snipping and weeding and trowelling 
and other small gardening, such making and mending and 
folding and airing, such diverse arrangements, and above all 
such severe study! For Mrs. J. R., who had never been 
wont to do too much at home as Miss B. W., was under the 
constant necessity of referring for advice and support to a 
sage volume entitled The Complete British Family Housewife, 
which she would sit consulting, with her elbows on the table 
and her temples on her hands, like some perplexed enchantress 
poring over the Black Art. This, principally because the 
Complete British Housewife, however sound a Briton at 
heart, was by no means an expert Briton at expressing herself 
with clearness in the British tongue, and sometimes might 
have issued her directions to equal purpose in the Kamskat- 
chan language. In any crisis of this nature, Bella would 
suddenly exclaim aloud, “ Oh, you ridiculous old thing, what 
do you mean by that? You must have been drinking!” 
And having made this marginal note, would try the Housewife 
again, with all her dimples screwed into an expression of 
profound research. 

There was likewise a coolness on the part of the British 
Housewife, which Mrs. John Rokesmith found highly ex- 
asperating. She would say, “ Take a salamander,” as if a 
general should command a private to catch a Tartar. Or, 
she would casually issue the order, “ Throw in a handful — ” 
of something entirely unattainable. In these, the House- 
wife’s most glaring moments of unreason, Bella would shut 
her up and knock her on the table, apostrophising her with 


772 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


the compliment, “ Oh you are a stupid old donkey! Where 
am I to get it, do you think ? ” 

Another branch of study claimed the attention of Mrs. 
John Rokesmith for a regular period every day. This was 
the mastering of the newspaper, so that she might be close 
up with John on general topics when John came home. In 
her desire to be in all things his companion, she would have 
set herself with equal zeal to master Algebra, or Euclid, if 
he had divided his soul between her and either. Wonderful 
was the way in which she would store up the City Intelli- 
gence, and beamingly shed it upon John in the course of 
the evening, incidentally mentioning the commodities that 
were looking up in the markets, and how much gold had 
been taken to the Bank, and trying to look wise and serious 
over it until she would laugh at herself most charmingly, 
and would say, kissing him: “ It all comes of my love, John 
dear.” 

For a City man, John certainly did appear to care as little 
as might be for the looking up or looking down of things, 
as well as for the gold that got taken to the Bank. But he 
cared, beyond all expression, for his wife, as a most precious 
and sweet commodity that was always looking up, and that 
never was worth less than all the gold in the world. And 
she, being inspired by her affection, and having a quick wit 
and a fine ready instinct, made amazing progress in her 
domestic efficiency, though, as an endearing creature, she 
made no progress at all. This was her husband’s verdict, 
and he justified it by telling her that she had begun her 
married life as the most endearing creature that could pos- 
sibly be. 

“And you have such a cheerful spirit! ” he said, fondly. 
“ You are like a bright light in the house.” 

“ Am I truly, John ? ” 

“Are you truly? Yes, indeed. Only much more, and 
much better.” 

“ Do you know, John dear,” said Bella, taking him by a 
button of his coat, “ that I sometimes, at odd moments — 
don’t laugh, John, please.” 

Nothing should induce John to do it, when she asked him 
not to do it. 


CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE 773 

“ — That I sometimes think, John, I feel a little serious.” 

“ Are you too much alone, my darling? ” 

“ Oh dear, no, John! The time is so short that I have 
not a moment too much in the week.” 

“ Why serious, my life, then? When serious? ” 

“ When I laugh, I think,” said Bella, laughing, as she 
laid her head upon his shoulder. “ You wouldn’t believe, 
sir, that I feel serious now? But I do.” And she laughed 
again, and something glistened in her eyes. 

“ Would you like to be rich, pet?” he asked her coax- 
ingly. 

“ Rich, John! How can you ask such goose’s questions? ” 

“ Do you regret anything, my love? ” 

“Regret anything? No!” Bella confidently answered. 
But then, suddenly changing, she said, between laughing and 
glistening: “ Oh yes, I do, though. I regret Mrs. Boffin.” 

“ I, too, regret that separation very much. But perhaps 
it is only temporary. Perhaps things may so fall out, as that 
you may sometimes see her again — as that we may sometimes 
see her again.” Bella might be very anxious on the subject, 
but she scarcely seemed so at the moment. With an absent 
air, she was investigating that button on her husband’s coat, 
when Pa came in to spend the evening. 

Pa had his special chair and his Special corner reserved for 
him on all occasions, and — without disparagement of his 
domestic joys — was far happier there than anywhere. It was 
always pleasantly droll to see Pa and Bella together; but on 
this present evening her husband thought her more than 
usually fantastic with him. 

“You are a very good little boy,” said Bella, “ to come 
unexpectedly as soon as you could get out of school. And 
how have they used, you at school to-day, you dear ? ” 

“ Well, my pet,” replied the cherub, smiling and rubbing 
his hands, as she sat him down in his chair, “ I attend two 
schools. There’s the Mincing Lane establishment, and there’s 
your mother’s Academy. Which might you mean, my 
dear?” 

“ Both,” said Bella. 

“Both, eh? Why, to say the truth, both have taken a 
little out of me to-day, my dear, but that was to be expected. 


774 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


There’s no royal road to learning; and what is life but 
learning? ” 

“And what do you do with yourself when you have got 
your learning by heart, you silly child ? ” 

“ Why then, my dear,” said the cherub, after a little con- 
sideration, “ I suppose I die.” 

“You are a very bad boy;” retorted Bella, “ to talk about 
dismal things and be out of spirits.” 

“ My Bella,” rejoined her father, “ I am not out of spirits. 
I am as gay as a lark.” Which his face confirmed. 

“ Then if you are sure and certain it’s not you, I suppose 
it must be I,” said Bella; “so I w^on’t do so any more. 
John dear, we must give this little fellow his supper, you 
know.” 

“ Of course we must, my darling.” 

“ He has been grubbing and grubbing at school,” said 
Bella, looking at her father’s hand and lightly slapping it, 
“ till he’s not fit to be seen. Oh what a grubby child! ” 

“ Indeed, my dear,” said her father, “ I was going to ask to 
be allowed to wash my hands, only you find me out so soon.” 

“ Come here, sir! ” cried Bella, taking him by the front of 
his coat, “ come here and be washed directly. You are not 
to be trusted to do it for yourself. Come here, sir! ” 

The cherub, to his genial amusement, was accordingly 
conducted to a little washing-room, where Bella soaped his 
face and rubbed his face, and soaped his hands and rubbed 
his hands, and splashed him and rinsed him and tow^elled him, 
until he was as red as beetroot, even to his very ears: “ Now 
you must be brushed and combed, sir,” said Bella, busily. 
“ Hold the light, John. Shut your eyes, sir, and let me 
take hold of your chin. Be good directly, and do as you 
are told!” , 

Her father being more than willing to obey, she dressed his 
hair in her most elaborate manner, brushing it out straight, 
parting it, winding it over her fingers, sticking it up on end, 
and constantly falling back on John to get a good look at 
the effect of it. Who always received her on his disengaged 
arm, and detained her, while the patient cherub stood wait- 
ing to be finished. 

“ There! ” said Bella, when she had at last completed the 


CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE 775 

final touches. “ Now you are something like a genteel boy I 
Put your jacket on, and come and have your supper.” 

The cherub investing himself with his coat was led back to 
his corner — where, but for having no egotism in his pleasant 
nature, he would have answered well enough for that radiant 
though self-sufficient boy. Jack Horner — Bella with her own 
hands laid a cloth for him, and brought him his supper on a 
tray. “ Stop a moment,” said she, “ we must keep his little 
clothes clean; ” and tied a napkin under his chin, in a very 
methodical manner. 

While he took his supper, Bella sat by him, sometimes 
admonishing him to hold his fork by the handle, like a polite 
child, and at other times carving for him, or pouring out his 
drink. Fantastic as it all was, and accustomed as she ever 
had been to make a plaything of her good father, ever de- 
lighted that she should put him to that account, still there 
was an occasional something on Bella’s part that was new. 
It could not be said that she was less playful, whimsical, or 
natural, than she always had been; but it seemed, her 
husband thought, as if there were some rather graver reason 
than he had supposed for what she had so lately said, and as 
if, throughout all this, there were glimpses of an underlying 
seriousness. 

It was a circumstance in support of this view of the case, 
that when she had lighted her father’s pipe, and mixed him 
his glass of grog, she sat down on a stool between her father 
and her husband, leaning her arm upon the latter, and was 
very quiet. So quiet, that when her father rose to take his 
leave, she looked round with a start, as if she had forgotten 
his being there. 

“ You go a little way with Pa, John ? ” 

“ Yes, my dear. Do you? ” 

“ I have not written to Lizzie Hexam since I wrote and 
told her that I really had a lover — a whole one. I have 
often thought I would like to tell her how right she was 
when she pretended to read in the live coals that I would go 
through fire and water for him. I am in the humour to tell 
her so to-night, John, and I’ll stay at home and do it.” 

“ You are tired.” 

“ Not at all tired, John dear, but in the humour to write 


776 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


to Lizzie. Good night, dear Pa. Good night, you dear, 
good, gentle PaP’ 

Left to herself, she sat down to write, and wrote Lizzie a 
long letter. She had but completed it and read it over, when 
her husband came back. ‘‘You are just in time, sir,'' said 
Bella; “ I am going to give you your first curtain lecture 
It shall be a parlour curtain lecture. You shall take this 
chair of mine when I have folded my letter, and I will take 
the stool (though you ought to take it, I can tell you, sir, if 
it’s the stool of repentance), and you’ll soon find yourself 
taken to task soundly.” 

Her letter folded, sealed, and directed, and her pen wiped, 
and her middle finger wiped, and her desk locked up and put 
away, and these transactions performed with an air of severe 
business sedateness, which the Complete British Housewife 
might have assumed, and certainly would not have rounded 
off and broken down in with a musical laugh, as Bella did: 
she placed her husband in his chair, and placed herself upon 
her stool. 

“ Now, sir! To begin at the beginning. What is your 
name ? ” 

A question more decidedly rushing at the secret he was 
keeping from her could not have astounded him. But he 
kept his countenance and his secret, and answered, “ John 
Rokesmith, my dear.” 

“ Good boy! Who gave you that name? ” 

With a returning suspicion that something might have 
betrayed him to her, he answered, interrogatively, “ My god- 
fathers and my godmothers, dear love ? ” 

“ Pretty good! ” said Bella. “ Not goodest good, because 
you hesitate about it. However, as you know your Catechism 
fairly, so far. I’ll let you off the rest. Now, I am going to 
examine you out of my own head. John dear, why did you 
go back, this evening, to the question you once asked me 
before — would I like to be rich ? ” 

Again, his secret! He looked down at her as she looked 
up at him, with her hands folded on his knee, and it was as 
nearly told as ever secret was. 

Having no reply ready, he could do no better than em- 
brace her. 


CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE 777 

“ In short, dear John,’' said Bella, “ this is the topic of 
my lecture: I want nothing on earth, and I want you to 
believe it.” 

“ If that’s all, the lecture may be considered over, for I do.” 

“ It’s not all, John dear,” Bella hesitated. “ It’s only 
Firstly. There’s a dreadful Secondly, and a dreadful Thirdly 
to come — as I used to say to myself in sermon-time when I 
was a very small-sized sinner at church ” 

“ Let them come, my dearest.” 

Are you sure, John dear; are you absolutely certain in 
your innermost heart of hearts ? ” 

“ Which is not in my keeping,” he rejoined. 

“ No, John, but the key is. — Are you absolutely certain 
that down at the bottom of that heart of hearts, which you 
have given to me as I have given mine to you, there is no 
remembrance that I was once very mercenary ? ” 

“ Why, if there were no remembrance in me of the time 
you speak of,” he softly asked her with his lips to hers, 

could I love you quite as well as I do; could I have in the 
calendar of my life the brightest of its days; could I when- 
ever I look at your dear face, or hear your dear voice, see 
and hear my noble champion ? It can never have been that 
which made you serious, darling.” 

No, John, it wasn’t that, and still less was it Mrs. Boffin, 
though I love her. Wait a moment, and I’ll go on with the 
lecture. Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. 
It’s so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy.” 

She did so on his neck, and, still clinging there, laughed a 
little when she said, “ I think I am ready now for Thirdly, 
John.” 

“ I am ready for Thirdly,” said John, whatever it is.” 

“ I believe, John,” pursued Bella, “ that you believe that I 
believe ” 

“ My dear child,” cried her husband gaily, “ what a 
quantity of believing! ” 

“ Isn’t there? ” said Bella, with another laugh. “ I never 
knew such a quantity! It’s like verbs in an exercise. But 
I can’t get on with less believing. I’ll try again. I believe, 
dear John, that you believe that I believe that we have as 
much money as we require, and that we want for nothing.” 


778 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ It is strictly true, Bella.” 

“ But if our money should by any means be rendered not 
so much — if we had to stint ourselves a little in purchases 
that we can afford to make now — would you still have the 
same confidence in my being quite contented, John? ” 

“ Precisely the same confidence, my soul.” 

“ Thank you, John dear, thousands upon thousands of 
times. And I may take it for granted, no doubt,” with 
a little faltering, “ that you would be quite as contented 
yourself, John. But, yes, I know I may. For knowing 
that 1 should be so, how surely I may know that you would 
be so; you who are so much stronger, and firmer, and more 
reasonable and more generous than I am.” 

“ Hush! ” said her husband, “ I must not hear that. You 
are all wrong there, though otherwise as right as can be. 
And now I am brought to a little piece of news, my dearest, 
that I might have told you earlier in the evening. I have 
strong reason for confidently believing that we shall never be 
in the receipt of a smaller income than our present in- 
come.” 

She might have shown herself more interested in the 
intelligence; but she had returned to the investigation of 
the coat-button that had engaged her attention a few hours 
before, and scarcely seemed to heed what he said. 

** And now we have got to the bottom of it at last,” cried 
her husband, rallying her, “ and this is the thing that made 
you serious ? ” 

“ No, dear,” said Bella, twisting the button and shaking 
her head, “ it wasn’t this.’’ 

“ Why then. Lord bless this little wife of mine, there’s a 
Fourthly!” exclaimed John. 

“ This worried me a little, and so did Secondly,” said 
Bella, occupied with the button, “ but it was quite another 
sort of seriousness — a much deeper and quieter sort of 
seriousness — that I spoke of, John dear.” 

As he bent his face to hers, she raised hers to meet it, and 
laid her little right hand on his eyes, and kept it there. 

” Do you remember, John, on the day we were married. 
Pa’s speaking of the ships that might be sailing towards us 
from the unknown seas ? ” 


CONCERNING THE MENDICANT^S BRIDE 779 
“ Perfectly, my darling! ” 

“ I think among them there is a ship 

upon the ocean ..... bringing to you and me 

a little baby, John.” 


CHAPTER VI 


A CRY FOR HELP 

The Paper Mill had stopped work for the night, and the 
paths and roads in its neighbourhood were sprinkled with 
clusters of people going home from their day’s labour in it. 
There were men, women, and children in the groups, and 
there was no want of lively colour to flutter in the gentle 
evening wind. The mingling of various voices and the sound 
of laughter made a cheerful impression upon the ear, analo- 
gous to that of the fluttering colours upon the eye. Into the 
sheet of water reflecting the flushed sky in the foreground of 
the living picture, a knot of urchins were casting stones, and 
watching the expansion of the rippling circles. So, in the rosy 
evening, one might watch the ever-widening beauty of the 
landscape — beyond the newly-released workers wending 
home — beyond the silver river — beyond the deep green 
fields of corn, so prospering, that the loiterers in their narrow 
threads of pathway seemed to float immersed breast-high — 
beyond the hedgerows and the clumps of trees — beyond the 
windmills on the ridge — away to where the sky appeared to 
meet the earth, as if there were no immensity of space be- 
tween mankind and Heaven. 

It was a Saturday evening, and at such a time the village 
dogs, always much more interested in the doings of humanity 
than in the affairs of their own species, were particularly 
active. At the general shop, at the butcher’s and at the 
public-house, they evinced an inquiring spirit never to be 
satiated. Their especial interest in the public-house would 
seem to imply some latent rakishness in the canine character; 
for little was eaten there, and they, having no taste for beer 
or tobacco (Mrs Hubbard’s dog is said to have smoked, 
but proof is wanting), could only have been attracted by sym- 


A CRY FOR HELP 


781 


pathy with loose convivial habits. jMoreover, a most wretched 
fiddle played within; a fiddle so unutterably vile, that one 
lean long-bodied cur, with a better ear than the rest, found 
himself under compulsion at intervals to go round the comer 
and howl. Yet even lie returned to the public-house on each 
occasion with the tenacity of a confirmed drunkard 

Fearful to relate, there was even a sort of little Fair in the 
village. Some despairing gingerbread that had been vainly 
trying to dispose of itself all over the country, and had cast 
a quantity of dust upon its head in its mortification, again 
appealed to the public from an infirm booth So did a heap 
of nuts long, long exiled from Barcelona, and yet S])eaking 
English so indifferently as to call fourteen of themselves 
a pint. A Peep-show which had originally started with the 
Battle of Waterloo, and had since made it every other battle 
of later date by altering the Duke of Wellington’s nose, 
tempted the student of illustrated history. A Fat Lady, 
perhaps in part sustained upon postponed pork, her pro- 
fessional associate being a Learned Pig, displayed her life- 
size picture in a low dress, as she appeared when presented at 
Court, several yards round. All this was a vicious spectacle, 
as any poor idea of amusement on the part of the rougher 
hewers of wood and drawers of water in this land of England 
ever is and shall be. They must not vary the rheumatism 
with amusement. They may vary it with fever and ague, or 
with as many rheumatic variations as they have joints; but 
positively not with entertainment after their own manner. 

The various sounds arising from this scene of depravity, 
and floating away into the still evening air, made the evenings 
at any point which they just reached fitfully, mellowed by 
the distance, more still by contrast. Such was the stillness 
of the evening to Eugene Wraybum, as he walked by the 
river with his hands behind him. 

He walked slowly, and with the measured step and pre- 
occupied air of one who was waiting. He walked between 
the two points, an osier-bed at this end and some floating 
lilies at that, and at each point stopped and looked ex- 
pectantly in one direction. 

“ It is very quiet,” said he. 

It was very quiet Some sheep were grazing on the grass 


782 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


by the river-side, and it seemed to him that he had never 
before heard the crisp, tearing sound with which they cropped 
it. He stopped idly, and looked at them. 

“ You are stupid enough, I suppose. But if you are clever 
enough to get through life tolerably to your satisfaction, you 
have got the better of me, Man as I am, and Mutton as you 
are! ” 

A rustle in a field beyond the hedge attracted his attention. 
** What’s here to do?” he asked himself, leisurely going 
towards the gate and looking over. “No jealous paper- 
miller ? No pleasures of the chase in this part of the country ? 
Mostly fishing hereabouts! ” 

The field had been newly mown, and there were yet the 
marks of the scythe on the yellow-green ground, and the 
track of wheels where the hay had been carried. Following 
the tracks with his eyes, the view closed with the new hay- 
rick in a corner. 

Now if he had gone on to the hayrick, and gone round 
it? But say that the event was to be, as the event fell out, 
and how idle are such suppositions! Besides, if he had gone; 
what is there of warning in a bargeman lying on his 
face? 

“ A bird flying to the hedge,” was all he thought about it; 
and came back, and resumed his walk. 

“If I had not a reliance on her being truthful,” said 
Eugene, after taking some half-dozen turns, “ I should begin 
to think she had given me the slip for the second time. But 
she promised, and she is a girl of her word.” 

^ Turning again at the water-lilies, he saw her coming, and 
advanced to meet her. 

“ I was saying to myself, Lizzie, that you were sure to 
come, though you were late.” 

“ I had to linger through the village as if I had no object 
before me, and I had to speak to several people in passing 
along, Mr. Wrayburn.” 

“Are the lads of the village — and the ladies — such 
scandalmongers ? ” he asked, as he took her hand and drew it 
through his arm. 

She submitted to walk slowly on, with downcast eyes. 
He put her hand to his lips, and she quietly drew it away. 


A CRY FOR HELP 


783 


Will you walk beside me, Mr. Wrayburn, and not touch 
me? ” For his arm was already stealing round her waist. 

She stopped again, and gave him an earnest supplicating 
look. “ Well, Lizzie, well! ” said he, in an easy way, though 
ill at ease with himself, “ don't be unhappy, don’t be re- 
proachful.” 

“ I cannot help being unhappy, but I do not mean to be 
reproachful. Mr, Wrayburn, I implore you to go away from 
this neighbourhood to-morrow morning.” 

“ Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie!” he remonstrated. “As well be 
reproachful as wholly unreasonable. I can’t go away.” 

“Why not?” 

“ Faith! ” said Eugene in his airily candid manner, “ Be- 
cause you vron’t let me. Mind ! I don’t mean to be reproach- 
ful either, I don’t complain that you design to keep me here,. 
But you do it, you do it.” 

“ Will you walk beside me, and not touch me,” for his 
arm was coming about her again; “ while I speak to you 
very seriously, Mr. Wrayburn ? ” 

“ I will do anything within the limits of possibility, for 
you, Lizzie,” he answered with pleasant gaiety as he folded 
his arms. “See here! Napoleon Buonaparte at St. 
Helena.” 

“ When you spoke to me as I came from the Mill the 
night before last,” said Lizzie, fixing her eyes upon him with 
a look of supplication which troubled his better nature, 
“ you told me that you were much surprised to see me, 
and that you were on a solitary fishing excursion. Was it 
true ? ” 

“ It was not,” replied Eugene composedly, “ in the least 
true. I came here because I had information that I should 
find you here.” 

“ Can you imagine why I left London, Mr. Wrayburn? ” 

“ I am afraid, Lizzie,” he openly answered, “ that you left 
London to get rid of me. It is not flattering to my self-love, 
but I am afraid you did.” 

“ I did.” 

“ How could you be so cruel? ” 

“ Oh, Mr. Wrayburn,” she answered, suddenly breaking 
into tears, “ is the cruelty on my side? Oh, Mr. Wrayburn, 


784 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Mr. Wrayburn, is there no cruelty in your being here to- 
night? ” 

“ In the name of all that’s good — and that is not conjuring 
you in my own name — for Heaven knows I am not good ” — 
said Eugene, “ don’t be distressed! ” 

“ What else can I be, when I know the distance and the 
difference between us? What else can I be, when to tell 
me why you came here is to put me to shame 1 ” said Lizzie, 
covering her face. 

He looked at her with a real sentiment of remorseful 
tenderness and pity. It was not strong enough to impel 
him to sacrifice himself and spare her, but it was a strong 
emotion. 

“ Lizzie ! I never thought before, that there was a woman 
in the world who could affect me so much by saying so little. 
But don’t be hard in your construction of me. You don’t 
know what my state of mind towards you is. You don’t, 
know how you haunt me and bewilder me. You don’t know 
how the cursed carelessness that is over-officious in helping 
me at every other turning of my life, won’t help me here. 
You have struck it dead, I think, and I sometimes almost 
wish you had struck me dead along with it.” 

She had not been prepared for such passionate expressions, 
and they awakened some natural sparks of feminine pride 
and joy in her breast. To consider, wrong as he was, that 
he could care so much for her, and that she had the power to 
move him so! 

“ It grieves you to see me distressed, Mr. Wrayburn; it 
grieves me to see you distressed. I don’t reproach you. 
Indeed I don’t reproach you. You have not felt this as 
I feel it, being so different from me, and beginning from 
another point of view. You have not thought. But I entreat 
you to think now, think now! ” 

“ What am I to think of? ” asked Eugene bitterly. 

“ Think of me.” 

“ Tell me how not to think of you, Lizzie, and you’ll 
change me altogether.” 

“ I don’t mean in that way. Think of me, as belonging 
to another station, and quite cut off from you in honour. 
Remember that I have no protector near me, unless I have 


A CRY FOR HELP 


785 


one in your noble heart. Respect my good name. If you 
feel towards me, in one particular, as you might if I was a 
lady, give me the full claims of a lady upon your generous 
behaviour. I am removed from you and your family by being 
a working girl. How true a gentleman to be as considerate 
of me as if I was removed by being a Queen ! 

He would have been base indeed to have stood untouched 
by her appeal. His face expressed contrition and indecision 
as he asked: 

Have I injured you so much, Lizzie ? ” 

No, no. You may set me quite right. I don't speak 
of the past, Mr. Wrayburn, but of the present and the future. 
Are we not here now, because through two days you have 
followed me so closely where there are so many eyes to see you, 
that I consented to this appointment as an escape ? ” 

“ Again, not very flattering to my self-love,” said Eugene 
moodily; “ but yes. Yes. Yes.” 

“ Then I beseech you, Mr. Wrayburn, I beg and pray you, 
leave this neighbourhood. If you do not, consider to what 
you will drive me.” 

He did consider within himself for a moment or two, and 
then retorted, ‘‘ Drive you ? To what shall I drive you, 
Lizzie ? ” 

“ You will drive me away. I live here peacefully and 
respected, and I am well employed here. You will force me 
to quit this place as I quitted London, and — by following 
me again — will force me to quit the next place in which I 
may find refuge, as I quitted this.” 

“Are you so determined, Lizzie — forgive the word I am 
going to use, for its literal truth — to fly from a lover? ” 

“ I am so determined,” she answered resolutely, though 
trembling, “ to fly from such a lover. There was a poor 
woman died here but a little while ago, scores of years older 
than I am, whom I found by chance lying on the wet earth. 
You may have heard some account of her? ” 

“ I think I have,” he answered, “ if her name was Higden.” 

“ Her name was Higden. Though she was so weak and 
old, she kept true to one purpose to the very last. Even at 
the very last, she made me promise that her purpose should 
be kept to, after she was dead, so settled was her determina- 


786 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


tion. What she did, I can do. Mr. Wrayburn, if I believed 
— but I do not believe — that you could be so cruel to me as 
to drive me from place to place to wear me out, you should 
drive me to death and not do it.” 

He looked full at her handsome face, and in his own 
handsome face there was a light of blended admiration, anger, 
and reproach, which she — who loved him so in secret — 
whose heart had long been so full, and he the cause of its 
overflowing — drooped before. She tried hard to retain her 
firmness, but he saw it melting away under his eyes. In the 
moment of its dissolution, and of his first full knowledge of 
his influence upon her, she dropped, and he caught her on 
his arm. 

Lizzie! Rest so a moment. Answer what I ask you. 
If I had not been what you call removed from you and cut 
off from you, would you have made this appeal to me to leave 
you ? ” 

“ I don’t know, I don’t know. Don’t ask me, Mr. Wray- 
burn. Let me go back.” 

“ I swear to you, Lizzie, you shall go directly. I swear to 
you, you shall go alone. I’ll not accompany you. I’ll not 
follow you, if you will reply.” 

“ How can I, Mr. Wrayburn? How can I tell you what 
I should have done, if you had not been what you are ? ” 

“ If I had not been what you make me out to be,” he 
struck in, skilfully changing the form of words, “ would you 
still have hated me ? ” 

“ O Mr. Wrayburn,” she replied appealingly, and weeping,. 
“ you know me better than to think I do! ” 

“ If I had not been what you make me out to be, Lizzie, 
would yoil still have been indifferent to me ? ” 

“ O Mr. Wrayburn,” she answered as before, “ you know 
me better than that too! ” 

There was something in the attitude of her whole figure 
as he supported it, and she hung her head, which besought 
him to be merciful and not force her to disclose her heart. 
He was not merciful with her, and he made her do it. 

“ If I know you better than quite to believe (unfortunate 
dog though I am!) that you hate me, or even that you are 
wholly indifferent to me, Lizzie, let me know so much more 


A CRY FOR HELP 


787 


from yourself before we separate. Let me know how you 
would have dealt with me if you had regarded me as being 
what you would have considered on equal terms with you.” 

“ It is impossible, Mr. Wrayburn. How can I think of 
you as being on equal terms with me? If my mind could 
put you on equal terms with me, you could not be yourself. 
How could I remember, then, the night when I first saw you, 
and when I went out of the room because you looked at me 
so attentively? Or, the night that passed into the morning 
when you broke to me that my father was dead? Or, the 
nights when you used to come to see me at my next home ? 
Or, your having known how uninstructed I was, and having 
caused me to be taught better? Or, my having so looked 
up to you and wondered at you, and at first thought you so 
good to be at all mindful of me ? ” 

“ Only ‘ at first ’ thought me so good, Lizzie? What did 
you think me after ‘ at first ^ ? So bad ? ” 

“ I don’t say that. I don’t mean that. But after the first 
wonder and pleasure of being noticed by one so different from 
any one who had ever spoken to me, I began to feel that it 
might have been better if I had never seen you.” 

“ Why?” 

“ Because you were so different,” she answered in a lower 
voice. “ Because it was so endless, so hopeless. Spare me.” 

“ Did you think for me at all, Lizzie? ” he asked, as if he 
were a little stung. 

“ Not much, Mr. Wrayburn. Not much until to-night.” 

“ Will you tell me why? ” 

“ I never supposed until to-night that you needed to be 
thought for. But if you do need to be; if you do truly feel 
at heart that you have indeed been towards me what you 
have called yourself to-night, and that there is nothing for 
us in this life but separation; then Heaven help you, and 
Heaven bless you ! ” 

The purity with which in these words she expressed 
something of her own love and her own suffering, made a 
deep impression on him for the passing time. He held her, 
almost as if she were sanctified to him by death, and kissed 
her once, almost as he might have kissed the dead. 

“ I promised that I would not accompany you, nor follow 


788 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


you. Shall I keep you in view? You have been agitated, 
and it’s growing dark.” 

“ I am used to be out alone at this hour, and I entreat 
you not to do so.” 

“ I promise. I can bring myself to promise nothing more 
to-night, Lizzie, except that I will try what I can do.” 

” There is but one means, Mr. Wrayburn, of sparing your- 
self and of sparing me, every way. Leave this neighbourhood 
to-morrow morning.” 

“ I will try.” 

As he spoke the words in a grave voice, she put her hand 
in his, removed it, and went away by the river-side. 

“ Now, could Mortimer believe this? ” murmured Eugene, 
still remaining, after a while, where she had left him. ” Can 
I even believe it myself? ” 

He referred to the circumstance that there were tears upon 
his hand, as he stood covering his eyes. ” A most ridiculous 
position this, to be found out in ! ” was his next thought. 
And his next struck its root in a little rising resentment 
against the cause of the tears. 

“Yet I have gained a wonderful power over her, too, let 
her be as much in earnest as she will ! ” 

The reflection brought back the yielding of her face and 
form as she had drooped under his gaze. Contemplating 
the reproduction, he seemed to see, for the second time, in 
the appeal and in the confession of weakness, a little fear. 

“ And she loves me. And so earnest a character must be 
very earnest in that passion. She cannot choose for herself 
to be strong in this fancy, wavering in that, and weak in 
the other. She must go through with her nature, as I must 
go through with mine. If mine exacts its pains and penalties 
all round, so must hers, I suppose.” 

Pursuing the inquiry into his own nature, he thought, 
“ Now, if I married her. If, outfacing the absurdity of 
the situation in correspondence with M. R. F., I astonished 
M. R. F. to the utmost extent of his respected powers, by 
informing him that I had married her, how would M. R. F. 
reason wdth the legal mind? ‘ Y^ou wouldn’t many for 
some money and some station, because you were frightfully 
likely to become bored. Are you less frightfully likely to 






A CRY FOR HELP 


789 


become bored, marrying for no money and no station ? Are 
you sure of yourself ? ’ Legal mind, in spite of forensic pro- 
testations, must secretly admit, ‘ Good reasoning on the part 
of M, R. F. Not sure of myself.’ ” 

In the very act of calling this tone of levity to his aid, 
he felt it to be profligate and worthless, and asserted her 
against it. 

And yet,” said Eugene, “ I should like to see the fellow 
(Mortimer excepted) who would undertake to tell me that 
this was not a real sentiment on my part, won out of me by 
her beauty and her worth, in spite of myself, and that I 
would not be true to her. I should particularly like to see 
tlie fellow to-night who would tell me so, or who would tell 
me anything that could be construed to her disadvantage; 
for I am wearily out of sorts with one Wrayburn who cuts a 
sorry figure, and I would far rather be out of sorts with some- 
body else. ‘ Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad business.’ 
Ah! So go the Mortimer Lightwood bells, and they sound 
melancholy to-night.” 

Strolling on, he thought of something else to take himself 
to task for. “ Where is the analogy. Brute Beast,” he said 
impatiently, “ between a woman whom your father coolly 
finds out for you and a woman whom you have found out 
for yourself, and have ever drifted after with more and more 
of constancy since you first set eyes upon her? Ass! Can 
you reason no better than that ? ” 

But again he subsided into a reminiscence of his first full 
knowledge of his power just now, and of her disclosure of her 
heart. To try no more to go away, and to try her again, 
was the reckless conclusion it turned uppermost. And yet 
again, “ Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad business! ” 
And, “ I wish I could stop the Lightwood peal, for it sounds 
like a knell.” 

Looking above, he found that the young moon was up, and 
that the stars were beginning to shine in the sky from which 
the tones of red and yellow were flickering out, in favour of 
the calm blue of a summer night. He was still by the river- 
side. Turning suddenly, he met a man, so close upon him 
that Eugene, surprised, stepped back, to avoid a collision. 
The man carried something over his shoulder which might 


790 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


have been a broken oar, or spar, or bar, and took no notice 
of him, but passed on. 

“ Halloa, friend! ” said Eugene, calling after him, “ are you 
blind 

The man made no reply, but went his way. 

Eugene Wrayburn went the opposite way, with his hands 
behind him and his purpose in his thoughts. He passed the 
sheep, and passed the gate, and came within hearing of the 
village sounds, and came to the bridge. The inn where he 
stayed, like the village and the mill, was not across the river, 
but on that side of the stream on which he walked. How- 
ever, knowing the rushy bank and the backwater on the 
other side to be a retired place, and feeling out of humour 
for noise or company, he crossed the bridge, and sauntered 
on: looking up at the stars as they seemed one by one to 
be kindled in the sky, and looking down at the river as the 
same stars seemed to be kindled deep in the water. A 
landing-place overshadowed by a willow, and a pleasure-boat 
lying moored there among some stakes, caught his eye as he 
passed along. The spot was in such dark shadow, that he 
paused to make out what was there, and then passed on 
again. 

The rippling of the river, seemed to cause a correspondent 
stir in his uneasy reflections. He would have laid them 
asleep if he could, but they were in movement, like the 
stream, and all tending one way with a strong current. As 
the ripple under the moon broke unexpectedly now and then, 
and palely flashed in a new shape and with a new sound, so 
parts of his thoughts started, unbidden, from the rest, and 
revealed their wickedness. “ Out of the question to marry 
her,” said Eugene, “ and out of the question to leave her. 
The crisis! ” 

He had sauntered far enough. Before turning to retrace 
his steps, he stopped upon the margin, to look down at the 
reflected night. In an instant, with a dreadful crash, the 
reflected night turned crooked, flames shot jaggedly across 
the air, and the moon and stars came bursting from the sky. 

Was he struck by lightning? With some incoherent half- 
formed thought to that effect, he turned under the blows 
that were blinding him and mashing his life, and closed with 


A CRY FOR HELP 791 

a murderer, whom he caught by a red neckerchief — unless 
the raining down of his own blood gave it that hue. 

Eugene was light, active, and expert; but his arms were 
broken, or he was paralysed, and could do no more than 
hang on to the man, with his head swung back, so that he 
could see nothing but the heaving sky. After dragging at 
the assailant, he fell on the bank with him, and then there 
was another great crash, and then a splash, and all was done. 

Lizzie Hexam, too, had avoided the noise and the Saturday 
movement of people in the straggling street, and chose to 
walk alone by the water until her tears should be dry, and 
she could so compose herself as to escape remark upon her 
looking ill or unhappy on going home. The peaceful serenity 
of the hour and place, having no reproaches or evil intentions 
within her breast to contend against, sank healingly into its 
depths. She had meditated and taken comfort. She, too, 
was turning homeward,, when she heard a strange sound. 

It startled her, for it was like a sound of blows. She stood 
still and listened. It sickened her, for blows fell heavily and 
cruelly on the quiet of the night. As she listened, undecided, 
all was silent. As she yet listened, she heard a faint groan, 
and a fall into the river. 

Her old bold life and habit instantly inspired her. With- 
out vain waste of breath in crying for help where there were 
none to hear, she ran towards the spot from which the sounds 
had come. It lay between her and the bridge, but it was 
more removed from her than she had thought; the night 
being so very quiet, and sound travelling far with the help 
of the water. 

At length, she reached a part of the green bank, much 
and newly trodden, where there lay some broken splintered 
pieces of wood and some torn fragments of clothes. Stooping, 
she saw that the grass was bloody. Following the drops 
and smears, she saw that the watery margin of the bank 
was bloody. Following the current with her eyes, she saw 
a bloody face turned up towards the moon, and drifting away. 

Now, merciful Heaven .be thanked for that old time, and 
grant, O Blessed Lord, that through thy wonderful workings 
it may turn to good at last! To whomsoever the drifting 
face belongs, be it man’s or woman’s, help my humble hands, 


792 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Lord God, to raise it from death and restore it to some one 
to whom it must be dear! 

It was thought, fervently thought, but not for a moment 
did the prayer check her. She w^as away before it welled up 
in her mind, away, swift and true, yet steady above all — for 
without steadiness it could never be done — to the landing- 
place under the willow-tree, where she also had seen the 
boat lying moored among the stakes. 

A sure touch of her old practised hand, a sure step of her 
old practised foot, a sure light balance of her body, and she 
was in the boat. A quick glance of her practised eye showed 
her, even through the deep dark shadow, the sculls in a rack 
against the red-brick garden-wall. Another moment, and 
she had cast off (taking the line with her), and the boat 
had shot out into the moonlight, and she w’as rowing down 
the stream as never other woman rowed on English water. 

Intently over her shoulder, without slackening speed, she 
looked ahead for the driving face. She passed the scene of 
the struggle — yonder it was, on her left, well over the boat’s 
stern — she passed on her right, the end of the village street, 
a hilly street that almost dipped into the river; its sounds 
were growing faint again, and she slackened; looking as the 
boat drove everywhere, everywhere, for the floating face. 

She merely kept the boat before the stream now, and 
rested on her oars, knowing well that if the face were not 
soon visible, it had gone down, and she would overshoot it. 
An untrained sight would never have seen by the moonlight 
what she saw at the length of a few strokes astern. She 
saw the drowning figure rise to the surface, slightly struggle, 
and as if by instinct turn over on its back to float. Just so 
had she first dimly seen the face which she now dimly saw 
again. 

Firm of look and firm of purpose, she intently watched its 
coming on, until it was very near; then, with a touch un- 
shipped her sculls, and crept aft in the boat, between kneel- 
ing and crouching. Once, she let the body evade her, not 
being sure of her grasp. Twice, and she had seized it by 
its bloody hair. 

It was insensible, if not virtually dead; it was mutilated, 
and streaked the water all about it with dark red streaks. 


A CRY FOR HELP 


793 


As it could not help itself, it was impossible for her to get 
it on board. She bent over the stern to secure it with the 
line, and then the river and its shores rang to the terrible 
cry she uttered. 

But, as if possessed by supernatural spirit and strength, 
she lashed it safe, resumed her seat, and rowed in, des- 
perately, for the nearest shallow water where she might run 
the boat aground. Desperately, but not wildly, for she knew 
that if she lost distinctness of intention, all was lost and 
gone. 

She ran the boat ashore, went into the water, released him 
from the line, and by main strength lifted him in her arms 
and laid him in the bottom of the boat. He had fearful 
wounds upon him, and she bound them up with her dress 
torn into strips. Else, supposing him to be still alive, she 
foresaw that he must bleed to death before he could be 
landed at his inn, which was the nearest place for succour. 
This done very rapidly, she kissed his disfigured forehead, 
looked up in anguish to the stars, and blessed him and for- 
gave him, “ if she had anything to forgive.^’ It was only in 
that instant that she thought of herself, and then she thought 
of herself only for him. 

Now, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, en- 
abling me, without a wasted moment, to have got the boat 
afloat again, and to row back against the stream! And 
grant, O Blessed Lord God, that through poor me he may be 
raised from death, and preserved to some one else to whom 
he may be dear one day, though never dearer than to me! 

She rowed hard — rowed desperately, but never wildly — 
and seldom removed her eyes from him in the bottom of the 
boat. She had so laid him there, as that she might see his 
disfigured face; it was so much disfigured that his mother 
might have covered it, but it was above and beyond disfigure- 
ment in her eyes. 

The boat touched the edge of the patch of inn lawn, 
sloping gently to the water. There were lights in the windows, 
but there chanced to be no one out of doors. She made the 
boat fast, and again by main strength took him up, and 
never laid him down until she laid him down in the house. 

Surgeons were sent for, and she sat supporting his head. 


794 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


She had oftentimes heard, in days that were gone, how doc- 
tors would lift the hand of an insensible wounded person, and 
would drop it if the person were dead. She waited for the 
awful moment when the doctors might lift this hand, all 
broken and bruised, and let it fall. 

The first of the surgeons came, and asked, before proceed- 
ing to his examination, “ Who brought him in ? ” 

“ I brought him in, sir,^’ answered Lizzie, at whom all 
present looked. 

“You, my dear? You could not lift, far less carry, this 
weight.” 

“ I think I could not, at another time, sir; but I am sure 
I did.” 

The surgeon looked at her with great attention, and with 
some compassion. Having with a grave face touched the 
wounds upon the head, and the broken arms, he took the 
hand. 

Oh! would he let it drop? 

He appeared irresolute. He did not retain it, but laid it 
gently down, took a candle, looked more closely at the in- 
juries on the head, and at the pupils of the eyes. That done, 
he replaced the candle and took the hand again. Another 
surgeon then coming in, the two exchanged a whisper, an 1 
the second took the hand. ’Neither did he let it fall at once, 
but kept it for a while and laid it gently down. 

“Attend to the poor girl,” said the first surgeon then. 
“ She is quite unconscious. She sees nothing and hears 
nothing. All the better for her! Don’t rouse her, if you 
can help it; only move her. Poor girl, poor girl! She must 
be amazingly strong of heart, but it is much to be feared 
that she has set her heart upon the dead. Be gentle with 
her.” 


CHAPTER VII 


BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN 

Day was breaking at Plashwater Weir Mill Lock. Stars 
were yet visible, but there was dull light in the east that 
was not the light of night. The moon had gone down, and 
a mist crept along the banks of the river, seen through which 
the trees were the ghosts of trees, and the water was the 
ghost of water. This earth looked spectral, and so did the 
pale stars: while the cold eastern glare, expressionless as to 
heat or colour, with the eye of the firmament quenched, 
might have been likened to the stare of the dead. 

Perhaps it was so likened by the lonely Bargeman, standing 
on the brink of the lock. For certain, Bradley Headstone 
looked that way, when a chill air came up, and when it 
passed on murmuring, as if it whispered something that made 
the phantom trees and water tremble — or threaten — for 
fancy might have made it either. 

He turned away, and tried the Lock-house door. It was 
fastened on the inside. 

“ Is he afraid of me? he muttered, knocking. 

Rogue Riderhood was soon roused, and soon undrew the 
bolt and let him in. 

“ Why, T’otherest, I thought you had been and got lost! 
Two nights away! I a’most believed as you’d giv’ me the 
slip, and I had as good as half a mind for to advertise you 
in the newspapers to come for’ard.” 

Bradley’s face turned so dark on this hint, that Riderhood 
deemed it expedient to soften it into a compliment. 

“ But not you, governor, not you,” he went on, stolidly 
shaking his head. “ For what did I say to myself arter 
having amused myself with that there stretch of a comic 
idea, as a sort of a playful game ? Why, I says to myself. 


796 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


‘ He^s a man o’ honour.’ That’s what I says to myself. 
‘ He’s a man o’ double honour.’' ” 

Very remarkably, Riderhood put no question to him. He 
had looked at him on opening the door, and he now looked 
at him again (stealthily this time), and the result of his 
looking was, that he asked him no question. 

“ You’ll be for another forty on ’em, governor, as I judges, 
afore you turns your mind to breakfast,” said Riderhood, 
when his visitor sat down, resting his chin on his hand, with 
his eyes on the ground. And very remarkably again: Rider- 
liood feigned to set the scanty furniture in order, while he 
spoke, to have a show of reason for not looking at him. 

“ Yes, I had better sleep, I think,” said Bradley, without 
changing his position. 

“ I myself should recommend it, governor,” assented Rider- 
hood. ” Might you be anyways dry? ” 

” Yes. I should like a drink,” said Bradley; but without 
appearing to attend much. 

Mr. Riderhood got out his bottle, and fetched his jug-full 
of water, and administered a potation. Then he shook the 
coverlet of his bed and spread it smooth, and Bradley stretched 
himself upon it in the clothes he wore. Mr. Riderhood 
poetically remarking that he would pick the bones of his 
night’s rest in his wooden chair, sat in the window as before; 
but, as before, watched the sleeper narrowly until he was 
very sound asleep. Then he rose and looked at him close, 
in the bright daylight, on every side, with great minuteness. 
He went out to his Lock to sum up what he had seen. 

” One of his sleeves is tore right away below the elber, and 
the t’ other’s had a good rip at the shoulder. He’s been 
hung on to, pretty tight, for his shirt’s all tore out of the 
neck-gathers. He’s been in the grass and he’s been in the 
water. And he’s spotted, and I know with what, and with 
whose. Hooroar! ” 

Bradley slept long. Early in the afternoon a barge came 
down. Other barges had passed through, both ways, before 
it; but the Lock-keeper hailed only this particular barge, for 
news, as if he had made a time calculation with some nicety. 
The men on board told him a piece of news, and there was 
a lingering on their part to enlarge upon it. 


BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN 


797 


Twelve hours had intervened since Bradley’s lying down, 
when he got up. “ Not that I s waller it,” said Riderhood, 
squinting at his Lock, when he saw Bradley coming out of 
the house, “ as you’ve been a-sleeping all the time, old 
boy!” 

Bradley came to him, sitting on his wooden lever, and 
asked what o’clock it was ? Riderhood told him it was 
between two and three. 

“ When are you relieved? ” asked Bradley. 

“ Day arter to-morrow, governor.” 

“ Not sooner? ” 

“ Not a inch sooner, governor.” 

On both sides importance seemed attached to this ques- 
tion of relief. Riderhood quite petted his reply; saying 
a second time, and prolonging a negative roll of his head, 
” n — n — not a inch sooner, governor.” 

Did I tell you I was going on to-night ? ” asked Bradley. 

“ No, governor,” returned Riderhood, in a cheerful, affable, 
and conversational manner, “ you did not tell me so. But 
most like you meant to it and forgot to it. How, otherways, 
could a doubt have come into your head about it, governor? ” 

‘‘ As the sun goes down, I intend to go on,” said Bradley. 

“ So much the more necessairy is a Peck,” returned Rider- 
hood. “ Come in and have it, T’otherest? ” • 

The formality of spreading a table-cloth not being observed 
in Mr. Riderhood’s establishment, the serving of the “ peck ” 
was the affair of a moment; it merely consisted in the handing 
down of a capacious baking-dish with three-fourths of an im- 
mense meat-pie in it, and the production of two pocket- 
knives, an earthenware mug, and a large brown bottle of 
beer. 

Both ate and drank, but Riderhood much the more abun- 
dantly. In lieu of plates, that honest man cut two triangular 
pieces from the thick crust of the pie, and laid them, inside 
uppermost, upon the table: the one before himself, and the 
other before his guest. Upon these platters he placed two 
goodly portions of the contents of the pie, thus imparting 
the unusual interest to the entertainment that each partaker 
scooped out the inside of his plate, and consumed it with his 
other fare, besides having the sport of pursuing the clots of 


798 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


congealed gravy over the plain of the table, and successfully 
taking them into his mouth at last from the blade of his 
knife, in case of their not first sliding off it. 

Bradley Headstone was so remarkably awkward at these 
exercises, that the Rogue observed it. 

“ Look out, T’otherest! ” he cried, “ you’ll cut your hand! ” 

But the caution came too late, for Bradley gashed it at the 
instant. And, what was more unlucky, in asking Riderhood 
to tie it up, and in standing close to him for the purpose, he 
shook his hand under the smart of the wound, and shook 
blood over Riderhood’s dress. 

When dinner was done, and when what remained of the 
platters and what remained of the congealed gravy had been 
put back into what remained of the pie, which served as an 
economical investment for all miscellaneous savings. Rider- 
hood filled the mug with beer and took a long drink. And 
now he did look at Bradley, and with an evil eye. 

“ T’otherestI ” he said, hoarsely, as he bent across the 
table to touch his arm. “ The news has gone down the 
river afore you.” 

“ What news ? ” 

“ Who do you think,” said Riderhood, with a hitch of his 
head, as if he disdainfully jerked the feint away, “ picked 
up the body? Guess.” 

“ I am not good at guessing anything.” 

“ She did. Hooroar! You had him there adn. She 
did.” 

The convulsive twitching of Bradley Headstone’s face, and 
the sudden hot humour that broke out upon it, showed how 
grimly the intelligence touched him. But he said not a 
single word, good or bad. He only smiled in a lowering 
manner, and got up and stood leaning at the window, look- 
ing through it. Riderhood followed him with his eyes. 
Riderhood cast down his eyes on his own besprinkled clothes. 
Riderhood began to have an air of being better at a guess than 
Bradley owned to being. 

“ I have been so long in want of rest,” said the school- 
master, “ that with your leave I’ll lie down again.” 

“And welcome, T’otherest! ” was the hospitable answer 
of his host. He had laid himself down without waiting 


BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN 799 

for it, and he remained upon the bed until the sun was low. 
When he arose and came out to resume his journey, he 
found his host waiting for him on the grass by the towing- 
path outside the door. 

“ Whenever it may be necessary that you and I should 
have any further communication together,” said Bradley, 
“ I will come back. Good night! ” 

“ Well, since no better can be,” said Riderhood, turning 
on his heel, “Good night!” But he turned again as the 
other set forth, and added under his breath, looking after 
him with a leer: “ You wouldn’t be let to go like that, if my 
Relief warn’t as good as come. I’ll catch you up in a mile.” 

In a word, his real time of relief being that evening at 
sunset, his mate came lounging in, within a quarter of an 
hour. Not staying to fill up the utmost margin of his time, 
but borrowing an hour or so, to be repaid again when he 
should relieve his reliever, Riderhood straightway followed 
on the track of Bradley Headstone. 

He was a better follower than Bradley. It had been the 
calling of his life to slink and skulk and dog and waylay, 
and he knew his calling well. He effected such a forced 
march on leaving the Lock-house that he was close up with 
him — • that is to say, as close up with him as he deemed it 
convenient to be — before another Lock was passed. His 
man looked back pretty often as he went, but got no hint 
of him. He knew how to take advantage of the ground, and 
where to put the hedge between them, and where the wall, 
and when to duck, and when to drop, and had a thousand 
arts beyond the doomed Bradley's slow conception. 

But all his arts were brought to a standstill, like himself, 
when Bradley, turning into a green lane or riding by the 
river-side, a solitary spot run wild in nettles, briars, and 
brambles, and encumbered with the scathed trunks of a 
whole hedgerow of felled trees, on the outskirts of a little 
wood — began stepping on these trunks and dropping down 
among them and stepping on them again, apparently as a 
schoolboy might have done, but assuredly with no schoolboy 
purpose, or want of purpose. 

“What are you up to?” muttered Riderhood, down in 
the ditch, and holding the hedge a little open with both 


800 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


hands. And soon his actions made a most extraordinary 
reply. “By George and the Draggin!” cried Riderhood, 
“ if he ain’t a-going to bathe! ” 

He had passed back, on and among the trunks of trees 
again, and had passed on to the water-side and had begun 
undressing on the grass. For a moment it had a suspicious 
look of suicide, arranged to counterfeit accident. “But 
you wouldn’t have fetched a bundle under your arm, from 
among that timber, if such was your game! ” said Riderhood. 
Nevertheless it was a relief to him when the bather after 
a plunge and a few strokes came out. “For I shouldn’t,” 
he said, in a feeling manner, “ have liked to lose you till I 
had made more money out of you neither.” 

Prone in another ditch (he had changed his ditch as his 
man had changed his position), and holding apart so small 
a patch of the hedge that the sharpest eyes could not have 
detected him. Rogue Riderhood watched the bather dressing. 
And now gradually came the wonder that he stood up, com- 
pletely clothed, another man, and not the Bargeman. 

“ Aha! ” said Riderhood. “ Much as you was dressed that 
night. I see. You’re a-taking me with you, now. You’re 
deep. But I knows a deeper.” 

When the bather had finished dressing, he kneeled on the 
grass, doing something with his hands, and again stood up 
with his bundle under his arm. Looking all around him 
with great attention, he then went to the river’s edge, and 
flung it in as far, and yet as lightly as he could. It was 
not until he was so decidedly upon his way again as to be 
beyond a bend of the river, and for the time out of view,, 
that Riderhood scrambled from the ditch. 

“ Now,” was his debate with himself, “ shall I foller you 
on, or shall I let you loose for this once, and go a-fishing? ” 
The debate continuing, he followed, as a precautionary 
measure in any case and got him again in sight. “ If I was 
to let you loose this once,” said Riderhood then, still following, 
“ I could make you come to me agin, or I could find 
you out in one way or another. If I wasn't to go a-fishing, 
others might. — I’ll let you loose this once, and go a-fish- 
ing! ” With that, he suddenly dropped the pursuit and turned. 

The miserable man whom he had released for the time, 


BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN 801 

but not for long, went on towards London. Bradley was 
suspicious of every sound he heard, and of every face he saw, 
but was under a spell which very commonly falls upon the 
shedder of blood, and had no suspicion of the real danger 
that lurked in his life, and would have it yet. Riderhood 
was much in his thoughts — had never been out of his 
thoughts since the night-adventure of their first meeting; 
but Riderhood occupied a very different place there, from 
the place of pursuer; and Bradley had been at the pains of 
devising so many means of fitting that place to him, and of 
wedging him into it, that his mind could not compass the 
possibility of his occupying any other. And this is another 
spell against which the shedder of blood for ever strives in 
vain. There are fifty doors by which discovery may enter. 
With infinite pains and cunning, he double locks and bars 
forty-nine of them, and cannot see the fiftieth standing wide 
open. 

Now, too, was he cursed with a state of mind more wear- 
ing and more wearisome than remorse. He had no remorse; 
but the evil-doer who can hold that avenger at bay, cannot 
escape the slower torture of incessantly doing the evil deed 
again and doing it more efficiently. In the defensive declara- 
tions and pretended confessions of murderers, the pursuing 
shadow of this torture may be traced through every lie they 
tell. If I had done it as alleged, is it conceivable that I 
would have made this and this mistake? If I had done it 
as alleged, should I have left that unguarded place which 
that false and wicked witness against me so infamously 
deposed to ? The state of that wretch who continually finds 
the weak spots in his own crime, and strives to strengthen 
them when it is unchangeable, is a state that aggravates the 
offence by doing the deed a thousand times instead of once; 
but it is a state, too, that tauntingly visits the offence upon 
a sullen unrepentant nature with its heaviest punishment 
every time. 

Bradley toiled on, chained heavily to the idea of his hatred 
and his vengeance, and thinking how he might have satiated 
both in many better ways than the way he had taken. The 
instrument might have been better, the spot and the hour 
might have been better chosen. To batter a man down from 


802 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


behind in the dark, on the brink of a river, was well enough, 
but he ought to have been instantly disabled, whereas he had 
turned and seized his assailant; and so, to end it before 
chance help came, and to be rid of him, he had been hurriedly 
thrown backward into the river before the life was fully 
beaten out of him. Now if it could be done again, it must 
not be so done. Supposing his head had been held down 
under water for a while. Supposing the first blow had been 
truer. Supposing he had been shot. Supposing he had been 
strangled. Suppose this way, that way, the other way. 
Suppose anything but getting unchained from the one idea, 
for that was inexorably impossible. 

The school reopened next day. The scholars saw little or 
no change in their master’s face, for it always wore its slowly 
labouring expression. But, as he heard his classes, he was 
always doing the deed and doing it better. As he paused 
with his piece of chalk at the black board before writing on 
it, he was thinking of the spot, and whether the water was 
not deeper and the fall straighter, a little higher up, or a 
little lower down. He had half a mind to draw a line or 
two upon the board, and show himself what he meant. He 
was doing it again and improving on the manner, at prayers, 
in his mental arithmetic, all through his questioning, all 
through the day. 

Charley Hexam was a master now, in another school, under 
another head. It was evening, and Bradley was walking in 
his garden observed from behind by gentle little Miss Peecher, 
who contemplated offering him a loan of her smelling-salts, 
for headache, when Mary Anne, in faithful attendance, 
held up her arm. 

“ Yes, Mary Anne? ” 

“ Young Mr. Hexam, if you please, ma’am, coming to see 
Mr. Headstone.” 

“ Very good, Mary Anne.” 

Again Mary Anne held up her arm. 

“ You may speak, Mary Anne.” 

Mr. Headstone has beckoned young Mr. Hexam into his 
house, ma’am, and he has gone in himself without waiting for 
young Mr. Hexam to come up, and now he has gone in tooj 
ma’am, and has shut the door.” 


BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN 


803 


“ With all my heart, Mary Anne.” 

Again Mary Anne’s telegraphic arm worked, 

“ What more, Mary Anne? ” 

‘‘ They must find it rather dull and dark. Miss Peecher, 
for the parlour blind’s down, and neither of them pulls it 
up’’ 

There is no accounting,” said good Miss Peecher with a 
little sad sigh which she repressed by laying her hand on her 
neat methodical bodice, there is no accounting for tastes, 
Mary Anne.” 

Charley, entering the dark room, stopped short when he 
saw his old friend in its yellow shade. 

‘‘ Come in, Hexam, come in.” 

Charley advanced to take the hand that was held out to 
him; but stopped again, short of it. The heavy, blood-shot 
eyes of the schoolmaster, rising to his face with an effort, 
met his look of scrutiny. 

“ Mr. Headstone, what’s the matter? ” 

“ Matter ? Where ? ” 

Mr. Headstone, have you heard the news? This news 
about the fellow, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn ? That he is killed ? ” 

‘‘ He is dead, then! ” exclaimed Bradley, 

Young Hexam standing looking at him, he moistened his 
lips with his tongue, looked about the room, glanced at his 
former pupil, and looked down. “ I heard of the outrage,” 
said Bradley, trying to constrain his working mouth, “ but 
I had not heard the end of it.” 

' “ Where were you,” said the boy, advancing a step as he 

lowered his voice, “ when it was done? Stop! I don’t ask 
that Don’t tell me. If you force your confidence upon me, 
Mr. Headstone, I’ll give up every word of it. Mind! Take 
notice. I’ll give it up, and I’ll give up you. I will.” 

The wretched creature seemed to suffer acutely under this 
renunciation. A desolate air of utter and complete loneliness 
fell upon him, like a visible shade. 

“ It’s for me to speak, not you,” said the boy. “ If you 
do, you’ll do it at your peril. I am going to put your selfish- 
ness before you, Mr. Headstone — your passionate, violent, 
and ungovernable selfishness — to show you why I can, and 
why I will, have nothing more to do with you.” 


804 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


He looked at young Hexam as if he were waiting for a 
scholar to go on with a lesson that he knew by heart and was 
deadly tired of. But he had said his last word to him. 

‘‘ If you had any part — I don’t say what — in this at- 
tack,” pursued the boy; “ or if you know anything about it — 
I don’t say how much — or if you know who did it — I go 
no closer — you did an injury to me that’s never to be for- 
given. You know that I took you with me to his chambers 
in the Temple when I told him my opinion of him, and made 
myself responsible for my opinion of you. You know that I 
took you with me when I was watching him with a view to re- 
covering my sister and bringing her to her senses; you know 
that I have allowed myself to be mixed up with you all 
through this business, in favouring your desire to marry 
my sister. And how do you know that, pursuing the ends 
of your own violent temper, you have not laid me open to 
suspicion? Is that your gratitude to me, Mr. Headstone? ” 

Bradley sat looking steadily before him at the vacant air 
As often as young Hexam stopped, he turned his eyes towards 
him, as if he were w^aiting for him to go on with the lesson, 
and get it done. As often as the boy resumed, Bradley 
resumed his fixed face. 

“ I am going to be plain with you, Mr. Headstone,” said 
young Hexam, shaking his head in a half- threatening manner, 
‘‘ because this is no time for affecting not to know things 
that I do know — except certain things at which it might 
not be very safe for you to hint again. What I mean is 
this : if you were a good master, I was a good pupil. I have 
done you plenty of credit, alnd in improving my own reputa- 
tion I have improved yours quite as much. Very well then. 
Starting on equal terms, I want to put before you how you 
have shown your gratitude to me, for doing all I could to 
further your wishes with reference to my sister. You have 
compromised me by being seen about with me, endeavouring 
to counteract this Mr. Eugene Wrayburn. That’s the first 
thing you have done. If my character and my now dropping 
you help me out of that, Mr. Headstone, the deliverance is 
to be attributed to me, and not to you. No thanks to you 
for it! ” 

The boy stopping again, he moved his eyes again. 


BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN 


805 


I am going on, Mr. Headstone, don’t you be afraid. I 
am going on to the end, and I have told you beforehand 
what the end is. Now you know my story. You are as 
well aware as I am that I have had many disadvantages to 
leave behind me in life. You have heard me mention my 
father, and you are sufficiently acquainted with the fact that 
the home from which I, as I may say, escaped, might have 
been a more creditable one than it was. My father died, 
and then it might have been supposed that my way to 
respectability was pretty clear. No. For then my sister 
begins.” 

He spoke as confidently, and with as entire an absence of 
any tell-tale colour in his cheek, as if there were no softening 
old time behind him. Not wonderful, for there was none in 
his hollow empty heart. What is there but self, for selfishness 
to see behind it? 

When I speak of my sister, I devoutly wish that you 
had never seen her, Mr. Headstone. However, you did see 
her, and that’s useless now. I confided in you about her. 
I explained her character to you, and how she interposed 
some ridiculous fanciful notions in the way of our being as 
respectable as I tried for. You fell in love with her, and 
I favoured you with all my might. She could not be induced 
to favour you, and so we came into collision with this Mr. 
Eugene Wrayburn. Now, what have you done? Why, you 
have justified my sister in being firmly set against you from 
first to last, and you have put me in the wrong again! And 
why have you done it ? Because, Mr Headstone, you are in 
all your passions so selfish, and so concentrated upon yourself, 
that you have not bestowed one proper thought on me.” 

The cool conviction with which the boy took up and held 
his position could have been derived from no other vice in 
human nature. 

“ It is,” he went on, actually with tears, “ an extraordinary 
circumstance attendant on my life, that every eflfort I make 
towards perfect respectability is impeded by somebody else 
through no fault of mine! Not content with doing what I 
have put before you, you will drag my name into notoriety 
through dragging my sister’s — which you are pretty sure to 
do, if my suspicions have any foundation at all — and the 


806 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


worse you prove to be, the harder it will be for me to de- 
tach myself from being associated with you in people’s 
minds.” 

When he had dried his eyes and heaved a sob over his 
injuries, he began moving towards the door. 

“ However, I have made up my mind that I will become 
respectable in the scale of society, and that I will not be 
dragged down by others. I have done with my sister as well 
as with you. Since she cares so little for me as to care noth- 
ing for undermining my respectability, she shall go her 
way and I will go mine. My prospects are very good, and 
I mean to follow them alone. Mr. Headstone, I don’t say 
what you have got upon your conscience, for I don’t know. 
Whatever lies upon it, I hope you will see the justice of 
keeping wide and clear of me, and will find a consolation in 
completely exonerating all but yourself. I hope, before many 
years are out, to succeed the master in my present school, 
and the mistress being a single woman, though some years 
older than I am, I might even marry her. If it is any comfort 
to you to know what plans I may work out by keeping myself 
strictly respectable in the scale of society, these are the plans 
at present occurring to me. In conclusion, if you feel a 
sense of having injured me, and a desire to make some small 
reparation, I hope you will think how respectable you might 
have been yourself, and will contemplate your blighted exist- 
ence.” 

Was it strange that the wretched man should take this 
heavily to heart? Perhaps he had taken the boy to heart, 
first, through some long laborious years ; perhaps through the 
same years he had found his drudgery lightened by communi- 
cation with a brighter and more apprehensive spirit than his 
own ; perhaps a family resemblance of face and voice between 
the boy and his sister sinote him hard in the gloom of his 
fallen state. For whichsoever reason, or for all, he drooped 
his devoted head when the boy was gone, and shrank together 
on the floor, and grovelled there, with the palms of his hands 
tight-clasping his hot temples, in unutterable misery, and 
unrelieved by a single tear. 

Rogue Riderhood had been busy with the river that day. 


















i 

jt 


BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN 


807 


He had fished with assiduity on the previous evening, but the 
light was short, and he had fished unsuccessfully. He had 
fished again that day with better luck, and had carried his 
fish home to Plash water Weir Mill Lock-house, in a 
bundle. 


CHAPTER \TII 


A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER 

The dolls’ dressmaker went no more to the business-prem- 
ises of Pubsey and Co. in Saint Mary Axe, after chance had 
disclosed to her (as she supposed) the flinty and hypocritical 
character of Mr. Riah. She often moralised over her work 
on the triclis and the manners of that venerable cheat, but 
made her little purchases elsewhere, and lived a secluded life. 
After much consultation with herself, she decided not to put 
Lizzie Hexam on her guard against the old man, arguing 
that the disappointment of finding him out would come 
upon her quite soon enough. Therefore, in her communi- 
cation with her friend by letter, she was silent on this theme, 
and principally dilated on the backslidings of her bad child, 
who every day grew worse and worse. 

‘"You wicked old boy,” Miss Wren would say to him, with 
a menacing forefinger; “ you’ll force me to run away from 
you, after all, you will; and then you’ll shake to bits, and 
there’ll be nobody to pick up the pieces ! ” 

At this foreshadowing of a desolate decease, the wicked 
old boy w^ould whine and whimper, and would sit shaking 
himself into the lowest of low spirits, until such time as he 
could shake himself out of the house and shake another 
threepennyworth into himself. But dead drunk or dead 
sober (he had come to such a pass that he was least alive 
in the latter state), it w^as always on the conscience of the 
paralytic scarecrow that he had betrayed his sharp parent 
for sixty threepennyworths of rum, which were all gone, and 
that her sharpness would infalliby detect his having done it 
sooner or later. All things considered, therefore, and addi- 
tion made of the state of his body to the state of his mind, 
the bed on which Mr. Dolls re])osed was a bed of roses from 


A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER 809 

which the flowers and leaves had entirely faded, leaving him 
to lie upon the thorns and stalks. 

On a certain day, Miss Wren was alone at her work, with 
the house-door set open for coolness, and was trolling in a 
small sweet voice a mournful little song, which might have 
been the song of the doll she was dressing, bemoaning the 
brittleness and meltability of wax, when whom should she 
descry standing on the pavement, looking in at her, but 
Mr. Fledgeby. 

“ I thought it was you!” said Fledgeby, coming up the 
two steps. 

“ Did you ? ” Miss Wren retorted. ‘‘ And I thought it 
was you, young man. Quite a coincidence. You’re not 
mistaken, and I’m not mistaken. How clever we are! ” 

“ Well, and how are you ? ” said Fledgeby. 

“ I am pretty much as usual, sir,” replied Miss Wren. 
“ A very unfortunate parent, worried out of my life and 
senses by a very bad child.” 

Fledgeby’s small eyes opened so wide that they might have 
passed for ordinary-sized eyes, as he stared about him for the 
very young person whom he supposed to be in question. 

“ But you’re not a parent,” said Miss Wren, “ and conse- 
quently it’s of no use talking to you upon a family subject. 
To what am I to attribute the honour and favour ? ” 

“ To a wish to improve your acquaintance,” Mr. Fledgeby 
replied. 

Miss Wren, stopping to bite her thread, looked at him 
very knowingly. 

We never meet now,” said Fledgeby; “ do we? ” 

No,” said Miss Wren, chopping off the word. 

So I had a mind,” pursued Fledgeby, “ to come and have 
a talk with you about our dodging friend, the child of 
Israel.” 

“ So he gave you my address; did he ? ” asked Miss Wren. 

“ I got it out of him,” said Fledgeby, with a stammer. 

“ You seem to see a good deal of him,” remarked Miss 
Wren, with shrewd distrust. “ A good deal of him you seem 
to see, considering.” 

Yes, I do,” said Fledgeby. Considering.” 

Haven’t you,” inquired the dressmaker, bending over the 


810 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


doll on which her art was being exercised, ‘‘ done interceding 
with him yet ? 

“ No,'^ said Fledgeby, shaking his head. 

“ La! Been interceding with him all this time, and stick- 
ing to him still ? ” said Miss Wren, busy with her work. 

“ Sticking to him is the word,’^ said Fledgeby. 

Miss Wren pursued her occupation with a concentrated 
air, and asked, after an interval of silent industry : 

“Are you in the army?” 

“ Not exactly,” said Fledgeby, rather flattered by the 
question. 

“ Navy? ” asked Miss Wren. 

“ N — no,” said Fledgeby. He qualified these two negatives, 
as if he were not absolutely in either service, but was almost 
in both. 

“ What are you then ? ” demanded Miss Wren. 

“ I am a gentleman, I am,” said Fledgeby. 

“ Oh I ” assented Jenny, screwing up her mouth with an 
appearance of conviction. “ Yes, to be sure! That accounts 
for your having so much time to give to interceding. But 
only to think how kind and friendly a gentleman you must 
be!” 

Mr. Fledgeby found that he was skating round a board 
marked Dangerous, and had better cut out a fresh track. 
“ Let’s get back to the dodgerest of the dodgers,” said he. 
“ What’s he up to in the case of your friend the handsome 
gal? He must have some object. What’s his object? ” 

“ Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure! ” returned Miss 
Wren, composedly. 

“ He won’t acknowledge where she’s gone,” said Fledgeby; 
“ and I have a fancy that I should like to have another look 
at her. Now I know he knows where she is gone.” 

“ Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure!” Miss Wren 
again rejoined. 

“ And you know where she is gone? ” hazarded Fledgeby. 

“ Cannot undertake to say, sir, really,” replied Miss Wren. 

The quaint little chin met Mr. Fledgeby’s gaze wJth such 
a baffling hitch, that that agreeable gentleman was for some 
time at a loss how to resume his fascinating part in the 
dialogue. At length he said: 


A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER 


811 


“ Miss Jenny! — That’s your name, if I don’t mistake? ” 

“ Probably you don’t mistake, sir,” was Miss Wren’s cool 
answer; “ because you had it on the best authority. Mine, 
you know.” 

“ Miss Jenny! Instead of coming up and being dead, let’s 
come out and look alive. It’ll pay better, I assure you,” 
said Fledgeby, bestowing an inveigling twinkle or two upon 
the dressmaker. “ You’ll find it pay better.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Miss Jenny, holding out her doll at arm’s 
length, and critically contemplating the effect of her art with 
her scissors on her lips and her head thrown back, as if her 
interest lay there, and not in the conversation; “perhaps 
you’ll explain your meaning, young man, which is Greek to 
me. — You must have another touch of blue in your trimming, 
my dear.” Having addressed the last remark to her fair 
client. Miss Wren proceeded to snip at some blue fragments 
that lay before her, among fragments of all colours, and to 
thread a needle from a skein of blue silk. 

“ Look here,” said Fledgeby. — “ Are you attending? ” 

“ I am attending, sir,” replied Miss Wren, without the 
slightest appearance of so doing. “ Another touch of blue 
in your trimming, my dear.” 

“ Well, look here,” said Fledgeby, rather discouraged by 
the circumstances under which he found himself pursuing 
the conversation. “ If you’re attending ” 

(“ Light blue, my sweet young lady,” remarked Miss Wren, 
in a sprightly tone, “ being best suited t your fair com- 
plexion and your flaxen curls.”) 

“ I say, if you’re attending,” proceeded Fledgeby, “ it’ll 
pay better in this way. It’ll lead in a roundabout manner 
to your buying damage and waste of Pubsey and Co. at a 
nominal price, or even getting it for nothing.” 

“Aha!” thought the dressmaker. “But you are not so 
roundabout. Little Eyes, that I don’t notice your answering 
for Pubsey and Co. after all! Little Eyes, Little Eyes, 
you’re too cunning by half.” 

“ And I take it for granted,” pursued Fledgeby, “ that to 
get the most of your materials for nothing would be well 
worth your while. Miss Jenny? ” 

“ You may take it for granted,” returned the dressmaker 


812 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


with many knowing nods, that it’s always well worth my 
while to make money.” 

“ Now,” said Fledgeby approvingly, “ you’re answering to 
a sensible purpose. Now, you’re coming out and looking 
alive! So I make so free. Miss Jenny, as to offer the remark, 
that you and Judah were too thick together to last. You 
can’t come to be intimate with such a deep file as Judah with- 
out beginning to see a little way into him, you know,” said 
Fledgeby with a wink. 

“ I must own,” returned the dressmaker, with her eyes 
upon her work, that we are not good friends at pres- 
ent.” 

“ I know you’re not good friends at present,” said Fledgeby. 
“I know all about it. I should like to pay off Judah, by 
not letting him have his own deep way in everything. In 
most things he’ll get it by hook or by crook, but — hang it 
all! — don’t let him have his own deep way in everything. 
That’s too much.” Mr. Fledgeby said this with some display 
of indignant warmth, as if he was counsel in the cause for 
Virtue. 

“ How can I prevent his having his own way ? ” began the 
dressmaker. 

“ Deep way, I called it,” said Fledgeby. 

— His own deep way, in anything? ” 

I’ll tell you,” said Fledgeby. “ I like to hear you ask it, 
because it’s looking alive. It’s what I should expect to find 
in one of your sagacious understanding. Now, candidly.” 

“Eh?” cried Miss Jenny. 

“ I said, now candidly,” Mr. Fledgeby explained, a little 
put out. 

“ Oh-h!” 

“ I should be glad to countermine him, respecting the 
handsome gal, your friend. He means something there. 
You may depend upon it, Judah means something there. 
He has a motive, and of course his motive is a dark motive. 
Now, whatever his motive is, it’s necessary to his motive ” — 
Mr. Fledgeby’s constructive powers were not equal to the 
avoidance of some tautology here — “ that it should be kept 
from me, what he has done with her. So I put it to you, 
who know: What has he done with her? I ask no more. 


A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER 813 

And is that asking much, when you understand that it will 

pay?/’ 

Miss Jenny Wren, who had cast her eyes upon the bench 
again after her last interruption, sat looking at it, needle in 
hand but not working, for some moments. She then briskly 
resumed her work, and said, with a side-long glance of her 
eyes and chin at Mr. Fledgeby: 

Where d’ye live ? ” 

“Albany, Piccadilly,” replied Fledgeby. 

“ When are you at home? ” 

“ When you like.” 

“ Breakfast-time ? ” said Jenny, in her abruptest and 
shortest manner. 

“ No better time in the day,” said Fledgeby. 

“ I’ll look in upon you to-morrow, young man. Those 
two ladies,” pointing to dolls, “ have an appointment in Bond 
Street at ten precisely. When I’ve dropped ’em there. I’ll 
drive round to you.” With a weird little laugh. Miss Jenny 
pointed to her crutch-stick as her equipage. 

“This is looking alive indeed!” cried Fledgeby, rising. 

“Mark you! I promise you nothing,” said the dolls’ 
dressmaker, dabbing two dabs at him with her needle, as if 
she put out both his eyes. 

“ No no. I understand,” returned Fledgeby. “ The 
damage and waste question shall be settled first. It shall be 
made to pay; don’t you be afraid. Good day. Miss Jenny.” 

“ Good day, young man.” 

Mr. Fledgeby’s prepossessing form withdrew itself: and 
the little dressmaker, clipping and snipping and stitching, 
and stitching and snipping and clipping, fell to work at a 
great rate ; musing and muttering all the time. 

“ Misty, misty, misty. Can’t make it out. Little Eyes 
and the wolf in a conspiracy? Or Little Eyes and the wolf 
against one another? Can’t make it out. My poor Lizzie, 
have they both designs against you, either way? Can’t make 
it out. Is Little Eyes Pubsey, and the wolf Co? Can’t 
make it out. Pubsey true to Co, and Co to Pubsey ? Pubsey 
false to Co, and Co to Pubsey? Can’t make it out. What 
said Little Eyes ? ‘ Now, candidly ? ’ Ah ! However the cat 
jumps, he*s a liar. That’s all I can make out at present; but 


814 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


you may go to bed in the Albany, Piccadilly, with that for 
your pillow, young man ! ” Thereupon, the little dressmaker 
again dabbed out his eyes separately, and making a loop 
in the air of her thread and deftly catching it into a knot 
with her needle, seemed to bowstring him into the bargain. 

For the terrors undergone by Mr. Dolls that evening when 
his little parent sat profoundly meditating over her work, 
and when he imagined himself found out, as often as she 
changed her attitude, or turned her eyes towards him, there 
is no adequate name. Moreover it was her habit to shake 
her head at that wretched old boy whenever she caught his 
eye as he shivered and shook. What are popularly called 
“ the trembles ’’ being in full force upon him that evening, 
and likewise what are popularly called “ the horrors,” he had 
a very bad time of it; which was not made better by his 
being so remorseful as frequently to moan “ Sixty three- 
penn’orths.” This imperfect sentence not being at all in- 
telligible as a confession, but sounding like a Gargantuan 
order for a dram, brought him into new difficulties by occa- 
sioning his parent to pounce at him in a more than usually 
snappish manner, and to overwhelm him with bitter re- 
proaches. 

What was a bad time for Mr. Dolls could not fail to be a 
bad time for the dolls’ dressmaker. However, she was on the 
alert next morning, and drove to Bond Street, and set down 
the two ladies punctually, and then directed her equipage to 
conduct her to the Albany. Arrived at the doorway of the 
house in which Mr. Fledgeby’s chambers were, she found a 
lady standing there in a travelling dress, holding in her hand 
— of all things in the world — a gentleman’s hat. 

You want some one? ” said the lady in a stem manner. 

“ I am going up-stairs to Mr. Fledgeby’s.” 

“ You cannot do that at this moment. There is a gentle- 
man with him. I am waiting for the gentleman. His business 
with Mr. Fledgeby will very soon be transacted, and then 
you can go up. Until the gentleman comes down, you must 
wait here.” 

While speaking, and afterwards, the lady kept watchfully 
between her and the staircase, as if prepared to oppose her 
going up, by force. The lady being of a stature to stop 


A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER 815 

her with a hand, and looking mightily determined, the dress- 
maker stood still. 

“ Well? Why do you listen ? ” asked the lady. 

“ I am not listening,” said the dressmaker. 

“ What do you hear? ” asked the lady, altering her phrase 

“ Is it a kind of a spluttering somewhere? ” said the dress- 
maker, with an inquiring look. 

“ Mr. Fledgeby in his shower-bath, perhaps,” remarked the 
lady, smiling. 

“ And somebody’s beating a carpet, I think? ” 

Mr. Fledgeby’ s carpet, I dare say,” replied the smiling 
lady.^ 

Miss Wren had a reasonably good eye for smiles, being 
well accustomed to them on the part of her young friends, 
though their smiles mostly ran smaller than in nature. But 
she had never seen so singular a smile as that upon this 
lady’s face. It twitched her nostrils open in a remarkable 
manner, and contracted her lips and eyebrows. It was a 
smile of enjoyment too, though of such a fierce kind that 
Miss Wren thought she would rather not enjoy herself than 
do it in that way. 

Well!” said the lady, watching her. “What now?” 

“ I hope there’s nothing the matter! ” said the dress- 
maker. 

“ Where ? ” inquired the lady. 

“ I don’t know where,” said Miss Wren, staring about her. 
“ But I never heard such odd noises. Don’t you think I had 
better call somebody ? ” 

“ I think you had better not,” returned the lady with a 
significant frown, and drawing closer. 

On this hint the dressmaker relinquished the idea, and 
stood looking at the lady as hard as the lady looked at her. 
Meanwhile the dressmaker listened with amazement to the 
odd noises which still continued, and the lady listened too, 
but with a coolness in which there was no trace of amaze- 
ment. 

Soon afterwards came a slamming and banging of doors; 
and then came running clown-stairs a gentleman with whis- 
kers, and out of breath, who seemed to be red-hot. 

“ Is your business done, Alfred ? ” inquired the lady. 


816 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Very thoroughly done,” replied the gentleman, as he took 
his hat from her. 

“ You can go up to Mr. Fledgeby as soon as you like,” said 
the lady, moving haughtily away. 

“ Oh! And you can take these three pieces of stick with 
you,” added the gentleman politely, “ and say, if you please, 
that they come from Mr. Alfred Lammle, with his com- 
pliments, on leaving England. Mr. Alfred Lanimle. Be so 
good as not to forget the name.” 

The three pieces of stick were three broken and frayed 
fragments of a stout lithe cane. Miss Jenny taking them 
wonderingly, and the gentleman repeating with a grin, 
“ Mr. Alfred Lammle, if you’ll be so good. Compliments, 
on leaving England,” the lady and gentleman walked away 
quite deliberately, and Miss Jenny and her crutch-stick went 
up-stairs. “Lammle, Lammle, Lammle?” Miss Jenny re- 
peated as she panted from stair to stair, “ where have I 
heard that name? Lammle, Lammle? I know! Saint 
Mary Axe! ” 

With a gleam of new intelligence in her sharp face, the 
dolls’ dressmaker pulled at Fledgeby’s bell. No one an- 
swered ; but, from within the chambers, there proceeded a con- 
tinuous spluttering sound of a highly singular and unintelli- 
gible nature. 

“ Good Gracious! Is Little Eyes choking?” cried Miss 
Jenny. 

Pulling at the bell again and getting no reply, she pushed 
the outer door, and found it standing ajar. No one being 
visible on her opening it wider, and the spluttering con- 
tinuing, she took the liberty of opening an inner door, and 
then beheld the extraordinary spectacle of Mr. Fledgeby in 
his shirt, a pair of Turkish trousers, and a Turkish cap, 
rolling over and over on his own carpet, and spluttering 
wonderfully. 

“ Oh Lord! ” gasped Mr. Fledgeby. “ Oh my eye! Stop 
thief! I am strangling. Fire! Oh my eye! A glass of 
water. Give me a glass of water. Shut the, door. Murder! 
Oh Lord!” and then rolled and spluttered more than ever. 

Hurrying into another room. Miss Jenny got a glass of 
water, and brought it for Fledgeby’s relief; who, gasping. 


A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER 817 

spluttering, and rattling in his throat between whiles, drank 
some water, and laid his head faintly on her arm. 

‘‘Oh my eye!” cried Fledgeby, struggling anew. “It’s 
salt and snuff. It’s up my nose, and down my throat, and 
in my windpipe. Ugh! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ah — h — h — h! ” 
And here, crowing fearfully, with his eyes starting out of his 
head, appeared to be contending with every mortal disease 
incidental to poultry. 

“ And oh my Eye, I’m so sore! ” cried Fledgeby, starting 
over on his back, in a spasmodic way that caused the dress- 
maker to retreat to the wall. “Oh I smart sol Do put 
something to my back and arms, and legs and shoulders. 
Ugh! It’s down my throat again and can’t come up. Ow! 
Ow! Ow! Ah — h — h — h! Oh I smart so!” Here Mr. 
Fledgeby bounded up, and bounded down, and went rolling 
over and over again. 

The dolls’ dressmaker looked on until he rolled himself 
into a comer with his Turkish slippers uppermost, and then, 
resolving in the first place to address her ministration to the 
salt and snuff, gave him more water and slapped his back. 
But the latter application was by no means a success, causing 
Mr. Fledgeby to scream, and to ciy out, “ Oh my eye! don’t 
slap me! I’m covered with weales, and I smart so! ” 

However, he gradually ceased to choke and crow, saving 
at intervals, and Miss Jenny got him into an easy-chair: 
where, with his eyes red and watery, with his features swollen, 
and with some half-dozen livid bars across his face, he pre- 
sented a most rueful sight. 

“ What ever possessed you to take salt and snuff, young 
man ? ” inquired Miss Jenny. 

“ I didn’t take it,” the dismal youth replied. “ It was 
crammed into my mouth.” 

“ Who crammed it ? ” asked Miss Jenny. 

“ He did,” answered Fledgeby. “ The assassin. Lammle. 
He rubbed it into my mouth and up my nose and down my 
th roat — Ow I Ow ! Ow ! Ah — h — h — h ! Ugh ! — to prevent 
my crying out, and then cruelly assaulted me.” 

“With this?*' asked Miss Jenny, showing the pieces of 
cane. 

“ That's the weapon,” said Fledgeby, eyeing it with the 


818 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


air of an acquaintance. “ He broke it over me. Oh, I 
smart so! How did you come by it? ” 

“ When he ran down-stairs and joined the lady he had 
left in the hall with his hat ” — Miss Jenny began. 

Oh! groaned Mr. Fledgeby, writhing. “ She was hold- 
ing his hat, was she? I might have known she was in it.” 

“ When he came down-stairs and joined the lady who 
wouldn't let me come up, he gave me the pieces for you, and 
I was to say, ^ With Mr. Alfred Lammle’s compliments on 
his leaving England.' ” Miss Jenny said it with such spiteful 
satisfaction, and such a hitch of her chin and eyes as might 
have added to Mr. Fledgeby’ s miseries, if he could have 
noticed either, in his bodily pain with his hand to his head. 

Shall I go for the police? ” inquired Miss Jenny, with a 
nimble start towards the door. 

^‘Stop! No, don’t!” cried Fledgeby. “Don’t, please 
We had better keep it quiet. Will you be so good as shut 
the door? Oh, I do smart so!” 

In testimony of the extent to which he smarted, Mr. 
Fledgeby came wallowing out of the easy-chair, and took 
another roll on the carpet. 

“ Now the door’s shut,” said Mr. Fledgeby, sitting up in 
anguish, with his Turkish cap half on and half off, and the 
bars on his face getting bluer, “ do me the kindness to look 
at my back and shoulders. They must be in an awful state, 
for I hadn’t got my dressing-gown on, when the brute came 
rushing in. Cut my shirt away from the collar; there’s a 
pair of scissors on that table. Oh! ” groaned Mr. Fledgeby, 
with his hand to his head again. “ How I do smart, to be 
sure! ” 

“ There ? ” inquired Miss Jenny, alluding to the back and 
shoulders. 

“Oh Lord, yes!” moaned Fledgeby, rocking himself 
“ And all over! Everywhere! ” 

The busy little dressmaker quickly snipped the shirt away, 
and laid bare the results of as furious and sound a thrashing 
as even Mr. Fledgeby merited. “ You may well smart, young 
man!” exclaimed Miss Jenny. And stealthily rubbed her 
little hands behind him, and poked a few exultant pokes 
with her two forefingers over the crown of his head. 


A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER 


819 


‘‘What do you think of vinegar and brown paper 
inquired the suffering Fledgeby, still rocking and moaning. 
“ Does it look as if vinegar and brown paper was the sort 
of application ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Miss Jenny, with a silent chuckle. “ It looks 
as if it ought to be Pickled.” 

Mr. Fledgeby collapsed under the word “ Pickled,” and 
groaned again. “My kitchen is on this floor,” he said; 
“ you’ll find brown paper in a dresser-drawer there, and a 
bottle of vinegar on a shelf. Would you have the kindness 
to make a few plasters and put ’em on ? It can’t be kept too 
quiet.” 

“ One, two — hum — five, six. You’ll want six,” said the 
dressmaker. 

“ There’s smart enough,” whimpered Mr. Fledgeby, 
groaning and writhing again, “ for sixty.” 

Miss Jenny repaired to the kitchen, scissors in hand, found 
the brown paper and found the vinegar, and skilfully cut out 
and steeped six large plasters. When they were all lying 
ready on the dresser, an idea occurred to her as she was 
about to gather them up. 

“ I think,” said Miss Jenny, with a silent laugh, “ he 
ought to have a little pepper? Just a few grains? I think 
the young man’s tricks and manners make a claim upon his 
friends for a little pepper? ” 

Mr. Fledgeby’ s evil star showing her the pepper-box on 
the chimney-piece, she climbed upon a chair, and got it 
down, and sprinkled all the plasters with a judicious hand. 
She then went back to Mr. Fledgeby, and stuck them all on 
him: Mr. Fledgeby uttering a sharp howl as each was put 
in its place. 

“ There, young man! ” said the dolls’ dressmaker. “ Now 
I hope you feel pretty comfortable ? ” 

Apparently Mr. Fledgeby did not, for he cried by way of 
answer, “ Oh — h, how I do smart! ” 

Miss Jenny got his Persian gown upon him, extinguished 
his eyes crookedly with his Persian cap, and helped him to 
his bed : upon which he climbed groaning. “ Business 
between you and me being out of the question to-day, young 
man, and my time being precious,” said Miss Jenny 


820 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


then, “ I’ll make myself scarce. Are you comfortable 
now? ” 

“ Oh my eye! ” cried Mr. Fledgeby. ** No, I ain’t. 
Oh — h — h! how I do smart! ” 

The last thing Miss Jenny saw, as she looked back before 
closing the room door, was Mr. Fledgeby in the act of plung- 
ing and gambolling all over his bed, like a porpoise or dol- 
phin in its native element. She then shut the bedroom 
door, and all the other doors, and going down-stairs and 
emerging from the Albany into the busy streets, took omni- 
bus for Saint Mary Axe: pressing on the road all the gaily- 
dressed ladies whom she could see from the window, and 
making them unconscious lay-figures for dolls, while she 
mentally cut them out and basted them. 


CHAPTER IX 


TWO PLACES VACATED 

Set down by the omnibus at the corner of Saint Mary Axe, 
and trusting to her feet and her crutch-stick within its pre- 
cincts, the dolls’ dressmaker proceeded to the place of business 
of Pubsey and Co. All there was sunny and quiet externally, 
and shady and quiet internally. Hiding herself in the entry 
outside the glass door, she could see from that post of 
observation the old man in his spectacles sitting writing 
at his desk. 

“ Boh! ” cried the dressmaker, popping in her head at the 
glass door. “ Mr. Wolf at home ? ” 

The old man took his glasses off, and mildly laid them 
down beside him. “Ah Jenny, is it you? I thought you 
had given me up.” 

“ And so I had given up the treacherous wolf of the forest,” 
she replied; “ but, godmother, it strikes me you have come 
back. I am not quite sure, because the wolf and you change 
forms. I want to ask you a question or two, to find out 
whether you are really godmother or really wolf. May I? ” 

“ Yes, Jenny, yes.” But Riah glanced towards the door, 
as if he thought his principal might appear there, unseason- 
ably. 

“ If you’re afraid of the fox,” said Miss Jenny, “ you may 
dismiss all present expectations of seeing that animal. He 
won’t show himself abroad for many a day.” 

“ What do you mean, my child ? ” 

“ I mean, godmother,” replied Miss Wren, sitting down 
beside the Jew, “ that the fox has caught a famous flogging, 
and that if his skin and bones are not tingling, aching, and 
smarting at this present instant, no fox did ever tingle, ache, 
and smart.” Therewith Miss Jenny related what had come 
to pass in the Albany, omitting the few grains of pepper. 


822 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Now, godmother,” she went on, “ I particularly wish to 
ask you what has taken place here, since I left the wolf here ? 
Because I have an idea about the size of a marble, rolling 
about in my little noddle. First and foremost, are you 
Pubsey and Co., or are you either ? Upon your solemn word 
and honour.” 

The old man shook his head. 

“ Secondly, isn’t Fledgeby both Pubsey and Co.? ” 

The old man answered with a reluctant nod. 

“ My idea,” exclaimed Miss Wren, “ is now about the size 
of an orange. But before it gets any bigger, welcome back, 
dear godmother! ” 

The little creature folded her arms about the old man’s 
neck with great earnestness, and kissed him. “ I humbly beg 
your forgiveness, godmother. I am truly sorry. I ought to 
have had more faith in you. But what could I suppose when 
you said nothing for yourself, you know? I don’t mean to 
offer that as a justification, but what could I suppose, when 
you w'ere a silent party to all he said? It did look bad; 
now didn’t it? ” 

“ It looked so bad, Jenny,” responded the old man, with 
gravity, “ that I will straightway tell you what an impression 
it wrought upon me. I was hateful in mine own eyes. I 
was hateful to myself, in being so hateful to the debtor 
and to you. But more than that, and worse than that, and 
to pass out far and broad beyond myself — I reflected that 
evening, sitting alone in my garden on the housetop, that 
I was doing dishonour to my ancient faith and race. I re- 
flected — clearly reflected for the first time, that in bending 
my neck to the yoke I was willing to wear, I bent the un- 
willing necks of the whole Jewish people. For it is not, in 
Christian countries, with the Jews as with other peoples. 
Men say, ‘ This is a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. 
This is a bad Turk, but there are good Turks.’ Not so with 
the Jews. Men find the bad among us easily enough — 
among what peoples are the bad not easily found ? — but 
they take the worst of us as samples of the best; they take 
the lowest of us as presentations of the highest; and they say, 
" All Jews are alike.’ If, doing what I was content to do here, 
because I was grateful for the past and have small need of 


TWO PLACES VACATED 


823 


money now, I had been a Christian, I could have done it, 
compromising no one but my individual self. But doing it 
as a Jew, I could not choose but compromise the Jews of 
all conditions and all countries. It is a little hard upon 
us, but it is the truth. I would that all our people remem- 
bered it! Though I have little right to say so, seeing that it 
came home so late to me.” 

The dolls’ dressmaker sat holding the old man by the 
hand, and looking thoughtfully in his face. 

“ Thus I reflected, I say, sitting that evening in my garden 
on the housetop. And passing the painful scene of that day 
in review before me many times, I always saw that the poor 
gentleman believed the story readily, because I was one of 
the Jews — that you believed the story readily, my child, 
because I was one of the Jews — that the story itself first 
came into the invention of the originator thereof, because 
I was one of the Jews. This was the result of my having 
had you three before me, face to face, and seeing the thing 
visibly presented as upon a theatre. Wherefore I perceived 
that the obligation was upon me to leave this service. But, 
Jenny, my dear,” said Riah, breaking off, “ I promised that 
you should pursue your questions, and I obstruct them.” 

“ On the contrary, godmother; my idea is as large now as 
a pumpkin — and you know what a pumpkin is, don’t you ? 
So you gave notice that you were going? Does that come 
next ? ” asked Miss Jenny, with a look of close attention. 

I indited a letter to my master. Yes. To that effect.” 

“ And what said Tingling-Tossing-Aching-Screaming- 
Scratching-Smarter ? ” asked Miss Wren, with an unspeakable 
enjoyment in the utterance of those honourable titles and 
in the recollection of the pepper. 

“ He held me to certain months of servitude, which were 
his lawful term of notice. They expire to-morrow. Upon 
their expiration — not before — I had meant to set myself 
right with my Cinderella.” 

“ My idea is getting so immense now,” cried Miss Wren, 
clasping her temples, “ that my head won’t hold it! Listen, 
godmother; I am going to expound. Little Eyes (that’s 
Screaming-Scratching-Smarter) owes you a heavy grudge for 
going. Little Eyes casts about how best to pay you off. 


824 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Little Eyes thinks of Lizzie. Little Eyes says to himself, 
‘ 141 find out where he has placed that girl, and I’ll betray 
his secret because it’s dear to him.’ Perhaps Little Eyes 
thinks, ‘ I’ll make love to her myself too; ’ but that I can’t 
swear — all the rest I can. So Little Eyes comes to me, and 
I go to Little Eyes. That’s the way of it. And now the 
murder’s all out. I’m sorry,” added the dolls’ dressmaker, 
rigid from head to foot with energy as she shook her little 
fist before her eyes, “ that I didn’t give him Cayenne pepper 
and chopped pickled Capsicum!” 

This expression of regret being but partially intelligible 
to Mr. Riah, the old man reverted to the injuries Fledgeby 
had received, and hinted at the necessity of his at once going 
to tend that beaten cur. 

“ Godmother, godmother, godmother! ” cried Miss Wren, 
irritably, “ I really lose all patience with you. One would 
think you believed in the Good Samaritan. How can you 
be so inconsistent ? ” 

“ Jenny dear,” began the old man, gently, “ it is the 
custom of our people to help ” 

“ Oh! Bother your people! ” interposed Miss Wren, with 
a toss of her head. If your people don’t know better than 
to go and help Little Eyes, it’s a pity they ever got out of 
Egypt. Over and above that,” she added, “ he wouldn’t 
take your help if you offered it. Too much ashamed. Wants 
to keep it close and quiet, and to keep you out of the way.” 

They were still debating this point when a shadow darkened 
the entry, and the glass door was opened by a messenger 
who brought a letter unceremoniously addressed, “ Riah.” 
To which he said there was an answer wanted. 

The letter, which was scrawled in pencil uphill and down- 
hill and round crooked comers, ran thus: 

“ Old Riah, 

“ Your accounts being all squared, go. Shut up 
the place, turn out directly, and send me the key by bearer. 
Go. You are an unthankful dog of a Jew. Get out. 

u p ” 

The dolls’ dressmaker found it delicious to trace the 
screaming and smarting of Little Eyes in the distorted 


TWO PLACES VACATED 


825 


writing of this epistle. She laughed over it and jeered at 
it in a convenient corner (to the great astonishment of the 
messenger) while the old man got his few goods together in 
a black bag. That done, the shutters of the upper windows 
closed, and the office blind pulled down, they issued forth 
upon the steps with the attendant messenger. There, while 
Miss Jenny held the bag, the old man locked the house door, 
and handed over the key to him; who at once retired with 
the same. 

“ Well, godmother,” said Miss Wren, as they remained 
upon the steps together, looking at one another. “ And so 
you’re thrown upon the world!” 

“ It would appear so, Jenny, and somewhat suddenly.” 

“ Where are you going to seek your fortune? ” asked Miss 
Wren. 

The old man smiled, but looked about him with a look of 
having lost his way in life, which did not escape the dolls’ 
dressmaker. 

“ Verily, Jenny,” said he, “ the question is to the purpose, 
and more easily asked than answered. But as I have ex- 
perience of the ready goodwill and good help of those who 
have given occupation to Lizzie, I think I will seek them 
out for myself.” 

“ On foot? ” asked Miss Wren, with a chop. 

“ Ay! ” said the old man. “ Have I not my staff ? ” 

It was exactly because he had his staff, and presented so 
quaint an aspect, that she mistrusted his making the journey. 

“ The best thing you can do,” said Jenny, “ for the time 
being, at all events, is to come home with me, godmother. 
Nobody’s there but my bad child, and Lizzie’s lodging stands 
empty.” The old man, when satisfied that no inconvenience 
could be entailed on any one by his compliance, readily 
complied: and the singularly-assorted couple once more 
went through the streets together. 

Now the bad child, having been strictly charged by his 
parent to remain at home in her absence, of course went out; 
and, being in the very last stage of mental decrepitude, went 
out with two objects; firstly, to establish a claim he con- 
ceived himself to have upon any licensed victualler living, to 
be supplied with threepenny worth of rum for nothing; and 


826 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


secondly, to bestow some maudlin remorse on Mr. Eugene 
Wrayburn, and see what profit came of it. Stumblingly 
pursuing these two designs — they both meant rum, the only 
meaning of which he was capable — the degraded creature 
staggered into Covent Garden Market and there bivouacked, 
to have an attack of the trembles succeeded by an attack of 
the horrors, in a doorway. 

This market of Covent Garden was quite out of the 
creature’s line of road, but it had the attraction for him 
which it has for the worst of the solitary members of the 
drunken tribe. It may be the companionship of the nightly 
stir, or it may be the companionship of the gin and beer 
that slop about among carters and hucksters, or it may be 
the companionship of the trodden vegetable refuse, which is 
so like their own dress that perhaps they take the Market 
for a great wardrobe; but be it what it may, you shall see 
no such individual drunkards on doorsteps anywhere as there. 
Of dozing women-drunkards especially, you shall come upon 
such specimens there, in the morning sunlight, as you might 
seek out of doors in vain through London. Such stale vapid 
rejected cabbage-leaf and cabbage-stalk dress, such damaged- 
orange countenance, such squashed pulp of humanity, are 
open to the day nowhere else. So the attraction of the 
Market drew Mr. Dolls to it, and he had out his two fits 
of trembles and horrors in a doorway on which a woman 
had had out her sodden nap a few hours before. 

There is a swarm of young savages always flitting about 
this same place, creeping off with fragments of orange-chests 
and mouldy litter — Heaven knows into what holes they can 
convey them, having no home! — whose bare feet fall with 
a blunt dull softness on the pavement as the policeman hunts 
them, and who are (perhaps for that reason) little heard by 
the Powers that be, whereas in top-boots they would make 
a deafening clatter. These, delighting in the trembles and the 
horrors of Mr Dolls, as in a gratuitous drama, flocked about 
him in his doorway, butted at him, leaped at him, and pelted 
him. Hence, when he came out of his invalid retirement 
and shook off that ragged train, he was much bespattered, 
and in worse case than ever. But, not yet at his worst; 
for, going into a public-house, and being supplied in stress 


TWO PLACES VACATED 


827 


of business with his rum, and seeking to vanish without 
payment, he was collared, searched, found penniless, and 
admonished not to try that again, by having a pail of dirty 
water cast over him. This application superinduced another 
fit of the trembles; after which Mr. Dolls, as finding himself 
in good cue for making a call on a professional friend, ad- 
dressed himself to the Temple. 

There was nobody at the chambers but young Blight. 
That discreet youth, sensible of a certain incongruity in the 
association of such a client with the business that might be 
coming some day, with the best intentions temporised with 
Dolls, and offered a shilling for coach hire home. Mr. Dolls, 
accepting the shilling, promptly laid it out in two three- 
pennyworths of conspiracy against his life, and two three- 
pennyworths of raging repentance. Returning to the Cham- 
bers with which burden, he was descried coming round into 
the court by the wary young Blight watching from the 
window: who instantly closed the outer door, and left the 
miserable object to expend his fury on the panels. 

The more the door resisted him, the more dangerous and 
imminent became that bloody conspiracy against his life. 
Force of police arriving, he recognised in them the con- 
spirators, and laid about him hoarsely, fiercely, staringly, 
convulsively, foamingly. A humble machine, familiar to 
the conspirators and called by the expressive name of 
Stretcher, being unavoidably sent for, he was rendered a 
harmless bundle of torn rags by being strapped down upon 
it, with voice and consciousness gone out of him, and life 
fast going. As this machine was borne out at the Temple 
gate by four men, the poor little dolls’ dressmaker and her 
Jewish friend were coming up the street. 

“ Let us see what it is,” cried the dressmaker. “ Let us 
make haste and look, godmother.” 

The brisk little crutch-stick was but too brisk. “ Oh, 
gentlemen, gentlemen, he belongs to me!” 

“ Belongs to you ? ” said the head of the party, stopping 
it. 

“ Oh yes, dear gentlemen, he’s my child, out without 
leave. My poor bad, bad boy! and he don’t know me, he 
don’t know me ! Oh, what shall I do,” cried the little creature, 


828 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


wildly beating her hands together, “ when my own child 
don't know me! ” 

The head of the party looked (as well he might) to the 
old man for explanation. He whispered, as the dolls’ dress- 
maker bent over the exhausted form and vainly tried to 
extract some sign of recognition from it: “ It’s her drunken 
father.” 

As the load was put down in the street, Riah drew the 
head of the party aside, and whispered that he thought the 
man was dying. “No, surely not?” returned the other. 
But he became less confident, on looking, and directed the 
bearers to “ bring him to the nearest doctor’s shop.” 

Thither he was brought; the window becoming from 
within a wall of faces, deformed into all kinds of shapes 
through the agency of globular red bottles, green bottles, 
blue bottles, and other coloured bottles. A ghastly light 
shining upon him that he didn’t need, the beast so furious 
but a few minutes gone was quiet enough now, with a strange 
mysterious writing on his face, reflected from one of the 
great bottles, as if Death had marked him: “ Mine.” 

The medical testimony was more precise and more to the 
purpose than it sometimes is in a Court of Justice. “ You 
had better send for something to cover it. All’s over.” 

Therefore the police sent for something to cover it, and it 
was covered and borne through the streets, the people falling 
away. After it 'went the dolls’ dressmaker, hiding her face 
i 1 the Jewish skirts, and clinging to them with one hand, 
wliile with the other she plied her stick. It was carried 
home, and, by reason that the staircase was very narrow, it 
was put down in the parlour — the little working-bench being 
set aside to make room for it — and there, in the midst of 
the dolls with no speculation in their eyes, lay Mr. Dolls 
with no speculation in his. 

Many flaunting dolls had to be gaily dressed, before the 
money was in the dressmaker’s pocket to get mourning for 
Mr. Dolls. As the old man, Riah, sat by, helping her in 
such small ways as he could, he found it difficult to make 
out whether she really did realise that the deceased had been 
her father. 

‘‘ If my poor boy,” she would say, “ had been brought up 


TWO PLACES VACATED 829 

better, he might have done better. Not that 1 reproach 
myself. I hope I have no cause for that.” 

“ None indeed, Jenny, I am very certain.” 

** Thank you, godmother. It cheers me to hear you say 
so. But you see it is so hard to bring up a child well, when 
you work, work, work, all day. When he was out of em- 
ployment, I couldn’t always keep him near me. He got 
fractious and nervous, and I was obliged to let him go into 
the streets. And he never did well in the streets, he never 
did well out of sight. How often it happens with children! ” 

“ Too often, even in this sad sense! ” thought the old man. 

“ How can I say what I might have turned out myself, 
but for my back having been so bad and my legs so queer 
when I was young! ” the dressmaker would go on. “I had 
nothing to do but work, and so I worked. I couldn’t play 
But my poor unfortunate child could play, and it turned out 
the worse for him.” 

‘‘ And not for him alone, Jenny.” 

“ Well! I don’t know, godmother. He suffered heavily, 
did my unfortunate boy. He was very, very ill sometimes 
And I called him a quantity of names;” shaking her head 
over her work, and dropping tears. “ I don’t know that his 
going wrong was much the worse for me. If it ever was, 
let us forget it.” 

“ You are a good girl, you are a patient girl.” 

“ As for patience,” she would reply with a shrug, “ not 
much of that, godmother. If I had been patient, I should 
never have called him names. But I hope I did it for his 
good. And besides, I felt my responsibility as a mother so 
much. I tried reasoning, and reasoning failed. I tried 
coaxing, and coaxing failed. I tried scolding, and scolding 
failed. But I was bound to tiy everything, you know, with 
such a charge upon my hands. Where would have been 
my duty to my poor lost boy, if I had not tried everything? ” 

With such talk, mostly in a cheerful tone on the part of 
the industrious little creature, the day-work and the night- 
work were beguiled until enough of smart dolls had gone 
forth to bring into the kitchen, where the working-bench 
now stood, the sombre stuff that the occasion required, and 
to bring into the house the other sombre preparations. And 


830 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


now/’ said Miss Jenny, “ having knocked off my rosy- 
cheeked young friends, I’ll knock off my white-cheeked self.” 
This referred to her making her own dress, which at last 
was done. “ The disadvantage of making for yourself,” said 
Miss Jenny, as she stood upon a ciiair to look at the result 
in the glass, “ is, that you can’t charge anybody else for the 
job, and the advantage is, that you haven’t to go out to try 
on. Humph! Very fair indeed! If He could see me now 
(whoever he is) I hope he wouldn’t repent of his bargain! ” 

The simple arrangements were of her own making, and 
were stated to Riah thus: 

“ I mean to go alone, godmother, in my usual carriage, 
and you’ll be so kind as keep house while I am gone. It’s 
not far off. And when I return, we’ll have a cup of tea and 
a chat over future arrangements. It’s a very plain last house 
that I have been able to give my poor unfortunate boy; 
but he’ll accept the will for the deed, if he knows anything 
about it, and if he doesn’t know anything about it,” with a 
sob, and wiping her eyes, “ why, it won’t matter to him. I 
see the service in the Prayer-book says that we brought 
nothing into this world and it is certain we can take nothing 
out. It comforts me for not being able to hire a lot of stupid 
undertaker’s things for my poor child,. and seeming as if I 
was trying to smuggle ’em out of this world with him, when 
of course I must break down in the attempt, and bring ’em all 
back again. As it is, there’ll be nothing to bring back but me, 
and that’s quite consistent, for I shan’t be brought back 
some day!” 

After that previous carrying of him in the streets, the 
wretched old fellow seemed to be twice buried. He was taken 
on the shoulders of half-a-dozen blossom-faced men, who 
shuffled with him to the churchyard, and who were preceded 
by another blossom-faced man, affecting a stately stalk, as if 
he were a Policeman of the D(eath) Division, and ceremo- 
niously pretending not to know his intimate acquaintances 
as he led the pageant Yet, the spectacle of only one little 
mourner hobbling after caused many people to turn their 
heads with a look of interest. 

At last the troublesome deceased w^as got into the ground, 
to be buried no more, and the stately stalker stalked back 


TWO PLACES VACATED 


831 


before the solitary dressmaker, as if she were bound in honour 
to have no notion of the way home. Those Furies, the con- 
ventionalities, being thus appeased, he left her. 

“ I must have a very short cry, godmother, before I cheer 
up for good,” said the little creature, coming in. “ Because 
after all a child is a child, you know.” 

It w^as a longer cry than might have been expected. How- 
beit, it wore itself out in a shadowy corner, and then the 
dressmaker came forth, and washed her face, and made the 
tea, “ You wouldn’t mind my cutting out something while 
we are at tea, would you ? ” she asked her Jewish friend, with 
a coaxing air, 

“ Cinderella, dear child,” the old man expostulated, “ will 
you never rest ? ” 

“ Oh! It’s not work, cutting out a pattern isn’t,” said 
Miss Jenny, with her busy little scissors already snipping at 
some paper. “ The truth is, godmother, I want to fix . it 
while I have it correct in my mind.” 

“ Have you seen it to-day, then? ” asked Riah. 

“ Yes, godmother. Saw it just now. It’s a surplice, that’s 
what it is. Thing our clergymen wear, you know,” explained 
Miss Jenny, in consideration of his professing another 
faith. 

“And what have you to do with that, Jenny?” 

“Why, godmother,” replied the dressmaker, “ you must 
know that we Professors, who live upon our taste and inven- 
tion, are obliged to keep our eyes always open. And you 
know already that I have many extra expenses to meet just 
now. So it came into my head while I was weeping at my 
poor boy’s grave, that something in my way might be done 
with a clergyman.” 

“ What can be done ? ” asked the old man, 

“ Not a funeral, never fear! ” returned Miss Jenny, antici- 
pating his objection with a nod. “ The public don’t like to 
be made melancholy, I know very well. I am seldom called 
upon to put my young friends into mourning; not into real 
mourning, that is; Court mourning they are rather proud 
of. But a doll clergyman, my dear, — glossy black curls and 
whiskers, — uniting two of my young friends in matrimony,” 
said Miss Jenny, shaking her forefinger, “ is quite another 


832 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


affair. If you don’t see those three at the altar in Bond 
Street, in a jiffy, my name’s Jack Robinson! ” 

With her expert little ways in sharp action, she had got 
a doll into whitey-brown paper orders, before the meal was 
over, and was displaying it for the edification of the Jewish 
mind, when a knock was heard at the street-door. Riah 
went to open it, and presently came back, ushering in, with 
the grave and courteous air that sat so well upon him, a gentle- 
man. 

The gentleman was a stranger to the dressmaker; but even 
in the moment of his casting his eyes upon her, there was 
something in his manner which brought to her remembrance 
Mr. Eugene Wray burn. 

“ Pardon me,” said the gentleman. “ You are the dolls’ 
dressmaker? ” 

“ I am the dolls’ dressmaker, sir.” 

“ Lizzie Hexam’s friend? ” 

“ Yes, sir,” replied Miss Jenny, instantly on the defensive. 
“And Lizzie Hexam’s friend.” 

“ Here is a note from her, entreating you to accede to the 
request of Mr. Mortimer Lightwood, the bearer. Mr. Riah 
chances to know that I am Mr. Mortimer Lightwood, and 
will tell you so.” 

Riah bent his head in corroboration. 

“ Will you read the note? ” 

“ It’s very short,” said Jenny with a look of wonder, when 
she had read it. 

“ There was no time to make it longer. Time was so very 
precious. My dear friend, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, is dying.” 

The dressmaker clasped her hands, and uttered a little 
piteous cry. 

“ Is dying,” repeated Lightwood, with emotion, “ at some 
distance from here. He is sinking under injuries received 
at the hands of a villain w^ho attacked him in the dark. I 
come straight from his bedside. He is almost always insen- 
sible. In a short restless interval of sensibility, or partial 
sensibility, I made out that he asked for you to be brought 
to sit by him. Hardly relying on my own interpretation of 
the indistinct sounds he made, I caused Lizzie to hear them. 
We were both sure that he asked for you.” 



1 / 





TWO PLACES VACATED 


833 


The dressmaker, with her hands still clasped, looked 
affrightedly from the one to the other of her two companions. 

“ If you delay, he may die with his request ungratified, 
with his last wish — intrusted to me — we have long been 
much more than brothers — unfulfilled. I shall break down, 
if I try to say more.’’ 

In a few moments* the black bonnet and the crutch-stick 
were on duty, the good Jew was left in possession of the 
house, and the dolls’ dressmaker, side by side in a chaise 
with Mortimer Lightwood, was posting out of town. 


CHAPTER X 


THE dolls’ dressmaker DISCOVERS A WORD 

A DARKENED and hushed room; the river outside the win- 
dows flowing on to the vast ocean; a figure on the bed, 
swathed and bandaged and bound, lying helpless on its back, 
with its two useless arms in splints at its sides. Only two days 
of usage so familiarised the little dressmaker with this scene, 
that it held the place occupied two days ago by the recollec- 
tions of years. 

He had scarcely moved since her arrival. Sometimes his 
eyes were open, sometimes closed. When they were open, 
there was no meaning in their unwinking stare at one spot 
straight before them, unless for a moment the brow knitted 
into a faint expression of anger, or surprise. Then, Mortimer 
Lightwood would speak to him, and on occasions he would 
be so far roused as to make an attempt to pronounce his 
friend’s name. But in an instant consciousness was gone 
again, and no spirit of Eugene was in Eugene’s crushed outer 
form. 

They provided Jenny with materials for plying her work, 
and she had a little table placed at the foot of his bed. Sitting 
there, with her rich shower of hair falling over the chair-back, 
they hoped she might attract his notice. With the same 
object, she would sing, just above her breath, when he opened 
his eyes, or she saw his brow knit into that faint expression, 
so evanescent that it was like a shape made in water. But 
as yet he had not heeded. The “ they ” here mentioned were 
the medical attendant; Lizzie, who was there in all her inter- 
vals of rest; and Lightwood, who never left him. 

The two days became three, and the three days became 
four. At length, quite unexpectedly, he said something in 
a whisper. 


THE dolls’ dressmaker DISCOVERS A WORD 835 

What was it, my dear Eugene ? ” 

Will you, Mortimer — — ” 

“ Will I ? » 

‘^Send for her?” 

“ My dear fellow, she is here.” 

Quite unconscious of the long blank, he supposed that they 
were still speaking together. 

The little dressmaker stood up at the foot of the bed, 
humming her song, and nodded to him brightly. “ I can’t 
shake hands, Jenny,” said Eugene, with something of his old 
look; “ but I am very glad to see you.” 

Mortimer repeated this to her, for it could only be made 
out by bending over him and closely watching his attempts 
to say it. In a little while, he added: 

Ask her if she has seen the children ? ” 

Mortimer could not understand this, neither could Jenny 
herself, until he added: 

“ Ask her if she has smelt the flowers ? ” 

“Oh! I know!” cried Jenny. “I understand him 
now! ” Then Lightwood yielded his place to her quick 
approach, and she said, bending over the bed, with that 
better look: “You mean my long bright slanting rows of 
children, who used to bring me ease and rest? You mean 
the children who used to take me up, and make me 
light?” 

Eugene smiled, “ Yes.” 

“ I have not seen them since I saw you. I never see them 
now, but I am hardly ever in pain now.” 

“ It was a pretty fancy,” said Eugene. 

“ But I have heard my birds sing,” cried the little creature, 
“and I have smelt my flowers. Yes, indeed I have! And 
both were most beautiful and most Divine! ” 

“ Stay and help to nurse me,” said Eugene, quietly. “ I 
should like you to have the fancy here, before I die.” 

She touched his lips with her hand, and shaded her eyes 
with that same hand as she went back to her work and her 
little low song. He heard the song with evident pleasure, 
until she allowed it gradually to sink away into silence. 

“ Mortimer.” 

“ My dear Eugene.” 


836 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ If you can give me anything to keep me here for only a 
few minutes 

“To keep you here, Eugene ? ” 

“ To prevent my wandering away I don’t know where — 
for I begin to be sensible that I have just come back, and that 
I shall lose myself again — do so, dear boy! ” 

Mortimer gave him such stimulants as could be given him 
with safety (they were always at hand, ready), and, bending 
over him once more, was about to caution him, when he 
said: 

“ Don’t tell me not to speak, for I must speak. If you 
knew the harassing anxiety that gnaws and wears me when I 
am wandering in those places — where are those endless 
places, Mortimer? They must be at an immense distance! ” 

He saw in his friend’s face that he was losing himself; for 
he added after a moment: “ Don’t be afraid — I am not gone 
yet. What was it ? ” 

“You wanted to tell me something, Eugene. My poor 
dear fellow, you wanted to say something to your old friend 
— to the friend who has always loved you, admired you, 
imitated you, founded himself upon you, been nothing with- 
out you, and who, God knows, would be here in your place 
if he could.” 

“ Tut, tut! ” said Eugene with a tender glance as the other 
put his hand before his face. “ I am not worth it. I ac- 
knowledge that I like it, dear boy, but I am not worth it. 
This attack, my dear Mortimer; this murder ” 

His friend leaned over him with renewed attention, saying: 
“You and I suspect some one.” 

“ More than suspect. But, Mortimer, while I lie here, and 
when I lie here no longer, I trust to you that the perpetrator 
is never brought to justice.” 

“ Eugene ? ” 

“ Her innocent reputation would be ruined, my friend. 
She would be punished, not he. I have wronged her enough 
in fact: I have wronged her still more in intention. You 
recollect what pavement is said to be made of good intentions. 
It is made of bad intentions too. Mortimer, I am lying on it, 
and I know! ” 

“ Be comforted, my dear Eugene.” 




( 




\ 


i 

'( 


THE DOLLS^ DRESSMAKER DISCOVERS A WORD 837 

“ I will, when you have promised me. Dear Mortimer, 
the man must never be pursued. If he should be accused, 
you must keep him silent and save him. Don’t think of 
avenging me; think only of hushing the story and protecting 
her. You can confuse the case, and turn aside the circum- 
stances. Listen to what I say to you. It was not the school- 
master, Bradley Headstone, Do you hear me? Twice; it 
was not the schoolmaster, Bradley Headstone. Do you hear 
me? Three times; it was not the schoolmaster, Bradley 
Headstone,” 

He stopped, exhausted. His speech had been whispered, 
broken, and indistinct; but by a great effort he had made it 
plain enough to be unmistakable. 

“ Dear fellow, I am wandering away. Stay me for another 
moment, if you can,” 

Lightwood lifted his head at the neck, and put a wine-glass 
to his lips. He rallied. 

“ I don’t know how long ago it was done, whether weeks, 
days, or hours. No matter. There is inquiry on foot, and 
pursuit. Say! Is there not?” 

” Yes,” 

“ Check it; divert it! Don’t let her be brought in question. 
Shield her. The guilty man, brought to justice, would poison 
her name. Let the guilty man go unpunished. Lizzie and 
my reparation before all ! Promise me ! ” 

“ Eugene, I do. I promise you,” 

In the act of turning his eyes gratefully towards his friend, 
he wandered away. Plis eyes stood still, and settled into 
that former intent unmeaning stare. 

Hours and hours, days and nights, he remained in this 
same condition. There were times when he would calmly 
speak to his friend after a long period of unconsciousness, 
and would say he was better, and would ask for something. 
Before it could be given him, he would be gone again. 

The dolls’ dressmaker, all softened compassion now, 
watched him with an earnestness that never relaxed. She 
would regularly change the ice, or the cooling spirit, on his 
head, and would keep her ear at the pillow between whiles, 
listening for any faint words that fell from him in his wander- 
ings. It was amazing through how many hours at a time she 


838 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


would remain beside him, in a crouching attitude, attentive 
to his slightest moan. As he could not move a hand, he could 
make no sign of distress; but, through this close watching 
(if through no secret sympathy or power) the little creature 
attained an understanding of him that Lightwood did not 
possess. Mortimer would often turn to her, as if she were 
an interpreter between this sentient world and the insensible 
man ; and she would change the dressing of a wound, or ease 
a ligature, or turn his face, or alter the pressure of the bed- 
clothes on him, with an absolute certainty of doing right. 
The natural lightness and delicacy of touch, which had 
become very refined by practice in her miniature work, no 
doubt was involved in this; but her perception was at least 
as fine. 

The one word, Lizzie, he muttered millions of times. In a 
certain phase of his distressful state, which was the worst to 
those who tended him, he would roll his head upon the 
pillow, incessantly repeating the name in a hurried and im- 
patient manner, with the misery of a disturbed mind, and 
the monotony of a machine. Equally, when he lay still and 
staring, he would repeat it for hours without cessation, but 
then, always in a tone of subdued warning and horror. Her 
presence and her touch upon his breast or face would often 
stop this, and then they learned to expect that he would for 
some time remain still, with his eyes closed, and that he 
would be conscious on opening them. But the heavy disap- 
pointment of their hope — revived by the welcome silence of 
the room — was, that his spirit would glide away again and 
be lost, in the moment of their joy that it was there. 

This frequent rising of a drowning man from the deep, to 
sink again, was dreadful to the beholders But gradually 
the change stole upon him that it became dreadful to himself. 
His desire to impart something that was on his mind, his 
unspeakable yearning to have speech with his friend and 
make a communication to him, so troubled him when he 
recovered consciousness, that its term was thereby shortened. 
As the man rising from the deep would disappear the sooner 
for fighting with the water, so he in his desperate struggle 
went down again. 

One afternoon, when he had been lying still, and Lizzie, 


THE dolls' dressmaker DISCOVERS A WORD 839 


unrecognised, had just stolen out of the room to pursue her 
occupation, he uttered Lightwood’s name. 

My dear Eugene, I am here.” 

How long is this to last, Mortimer? ” 

Lightwood shook his head. “ Still, Eugene, you are no 
worse than you were.” 

“ But I know there’s no hope. Yet I pray it may last long 
enough for you to do me one last service, and for me to do 
one last action. Keep me here a few moments, Mortimer, 
try I ” 

His friend gave him what aid he could, and encouraged 
him to believe that he was more composed, though even 
then his eyes were losing the expression they so rarely re- 
covered. 

“ Hold me here, dear fellow, if you can. Stop my wander- 
ing away. I am going! ” 

Not yet, not yet. Tell me, dear Eugene, what is it I 
shall do ? ” 

‘‘ Keep me here for only a single minute. I am going 
away again. Don’t let me go. Hear me speak first. Stop 
me — stop me! ” 

“ My poor Eugene, try to be calm.” 

I do try. I try so hard. If you only knew how hard! 
Don’t let me wander till I have spoken. Give me a little 
more wine.” 

Lightwood complied. Eugene, with a most pathetic 
struggle against the unconsciousness that was coming over 
him, and with a look of appeal that affected his friend pro- 
foundly, said: 

“You can leave me with Jenny, while you speak to her 
and tell her what I beseech of her. You can leave me with 
Jenny, while you are gone. There’s not much for you to do. 
You won’t be long away.” 

“ No, no, no. But tell me what it is that I shall do, Eu- 
gene! ” 

“ I am going! You can’t hold me.” 

“ Tell me in a word, Eugene! ” 

His eyes were fixed again, and the only word that came 
from his lips was the word millions of times repeated. Lizzie, 
Lizzie, Lizzie. 


840 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


But the watchful little dressmaker had been vigilant as 
ever in her watch, and she now came up and touched Light- 
wood’s arm as he looked down at his friend, despairingly. 

Hush! ” she said, with her finger on her lips. His eyes 
are closing. He’ll be conscious when he next opens them. 
Shall I give you a leading word to say to him ? ” 

‘‘ Oh, Jenny, if you could only give me the right word! ” 

‘‘ I can. Stoop down.” 

He stooped, and she whispered in his ear. She whispered 
in his ear one short word of a single syllable Lightwood 
started, and looked at her. 

“ Try it,” said the little creature, with an excited and 
exultant face. She then bent over the unconscious man, and, 
for the first time, kissed him on the cheek, and kissed the 
poor maimed hand that was nearest her. Then she withdrew 
to the foot of the bed. 

Some two hours afterwards, Mortimer Lightwood saw his 
friend’s consciousness come back, and instantly, but very 
tranquilly, bent over him. 

“ Don’t speak, Eugene. Do no more than look at me, and 
listen to me. You follow what I say? ” 

He moved his head in assent. 

“ I am going on from the point where we broke off. Is 
the word we should soon have come to — is it — Wife ? ” 

Oh, God bless you, Mortimer! ” 

“ Hush! don’t be agitated. Don’t sp^ak. Hear me, dear 
Eugene. Your mind will be more at peace, lying here, if you 
make Lizzie your wife. You wish me to speak to her, and 
tell her so, and entreat her to be your wife. You ask her 
to kneel at this bedside and be married to you, that your 
reparation may be complete. Is that so ? ” 

“Yes. God bless you! Yes.” 

“ It shall be done, Eugene. Trust it to me. I shall have 
to go away for some few hours, to give effect to your wishes 
You see this is unavoidable? ” 

“ Dear friend, I said so ” 

“ True. But I had not the clue then. How do you think 
I got it? ” 

Glancing wistfully around, Eugene saw Miss Jenny at the 
foot of the bed, looking at him with her elbows on the bed, 


THE dolls’ dressmaker DISCOVERS A WORD 841 

and her head upon her hands. There was a trace of his 
whimsical air upon him, as he tried to smile at her. 

“ Yes, indeed,” said Lightwood, “ the discovery was hers. 
Observe, my dear Eugene; while I am away you will know 
that I have discharged my trust with Lizzie, by finding her 
here, in my present place at your bedside, to leave you no 
more. A final word before I go. This is the right course 
of a true man, Eugene. And I solemnly believe, with all my 
soul, that if Providence should mercifully restore you to us, 
you will be blessed with a noble wife in the preserver of your 
life, whom you will dearly love.” 

“ Amen. I am sure of that. But I shall not come through 
it, Mortimer.” 

“You will not be the less hopeful or less strong for this, 
Eugene.” 

“No. Touch my face with yours, in case I should not 
hold out till you come back. I love you, Mortimer. Don’t 
be uneasy for me while you are gone. If my dear brave girl 
will take me, I feel persuaded that I shall live long enough 
to be married, dear fellow.” 

Miss Jenny gave up altogether on this parting taking place 
between the friends, and sitting with her back towards the 
bed in the bower made by her bright hair, wept heartily, 
though noiselessly. Mortimer Lightwood was soon gone. 
As the evening light lengthened the heavy reflections of the 
trees in the river, another figure came with a soft step into 
the sick room. 

“Is he conscious?” asked the little dressmaker, as the 
figure took its station by the pillow. For Jenny had given 
place to it immediately, and could not see the sufferer’s face, 
in the dark room, from her new and removed position. 

“ He is conscious, Jenny,” murmured Eugene for himself. 
“ He knows his wife.” 


CHAPTER XI 


EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DOLLS’ DRESSMAKEr’s DISCOVERY 

Mrs. John Rokesmith sat at needlework in her neat little 
room, beside a basket of neat little articles of clothing, which 
presented so much of the appearance of being in the dolls’ 
dressmakers’ way of business, that one might have supposed 
she was going to set up in opposition to Miss Wren. Whether 
the Complete British Family Housewife had imparted sage 
counsel anent them did not appear, but probably not, as that 
cloudy oracle was nowhere visible. For certain, however, Mrs. 
John Rokesmith stitched at them with so dexterous a hand, 
that she must have taken lessons of somebody. Love is in 
all things a most wonderful teacher, and perhaps love (from 
a pictorial point of view, with nothing on but a thimble) 
had been teaching this branch of needlework to Mrs. John 
Rokesmith. 

It was near John’s time for coming home, but as Mrs. 
John was desirous to finish a special triumph of her skill 
before dinner, she did not go out to meet him. Placidly, 
though rather consequentially smiling, she sat stitching away 
with a regular sound, like a sort of dimpled little charming 
Dresden-china clock by the very best maker. 

A knock at the door, and a ring at the bell. Not John; 
or Bella would have flown out to meet him. Then who, if 
not John ? Bella was asking herself the question, when that 
fluttering little fool of a servant fluttered in, saying, “ Mr. 
Light wood ! ” 

Oh good gracious ! 

Bella had but time to throw a handkerchief over the 
basket, when Mr. Lightwood made his bow. There was 
something amiss with Mr. Lightwood, for he was strangely 
grave and looked ill. 


EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DISCOVERY 843 

With a brief reference to the happy time when it had 
been his privilege to know Mrs. Rokesmith as Miss Wilfer, 
Mr. Lightwood explained what was amiss with him and why 
he came. He came bearing Lizzie Ilexam’s earnest hope 
that Mrs. John Rokesmith would see her married. 

Bella was so fluttered by the request, and by the short 
narrative he had feelingly given her, that there never was 
a more timely smelling-bottle than John’s knock. “ My 
husband,” said Bella; “ I’ll bring him in.” 

But that turned out to be more easily said than done; 
for, the instant she mentioned Mr. Lightwood’s name, 
John stopped, with his hand upon the lock of the room 
door. 

Come up-stairs, my darling.” 

Bella was amazed by the flush in his face, and by his 
sudden turning away. “ What can it mean ? ” she thought, 
as she accompanied him up-stairs. 

‘‘ Now, my life,” said John, taking her on his knee, “ tell 
me all about it.” 

All very well to say, “ Tell me all about it; ” but John 
was very much confused. His attention evidently trailed off, 
now and then, even while Bella told him all about it. Yet 
she knew that he took a great interest in Lizzie and her 
fortunes. What could it mean ? 

“You will come to this marriage with me, John dear?” 

“ N — no, my love: I can’t do that.” 

“ You can’t do that, John ? ” 

“ No, my dear, it’s quite out of the question. Not to be 
thought of.” 

“ Am I to go alone, John ? ” 

“ No, my dear, you will go with Mr. Lightwood.” 

“ Don’t you think it is time we went down to Mr. Light- 
wood, John dear?” Bella insinuated. 

“ My darling, it’s almost time you went, but I must ask 
you to excuse me to him altogether.” 

“You never mean, John dear, that you are not going to 
see him? Why he knows you have come home. I told 
him so.” 

“ That’s a little unfortunate, but it can’t be helped. Un- 
fortunate or fortunate, I positively cannot see him, my love.” 


844 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Bella cast about in her mind what could be his reason for 
this unaccountable behaviour, as she sat on his knee looking 
at him in astonishment and pouting a little. A weak reason 
presented itself. 

“ John dear, you never can be jealous of Mr. Lightwood ? ” 

“ Why, my precious child,” returned her husband, laugh- 
ing outright: “ how could I be jealous of him ? Why should I 
be jealous of him ? ” 

“ Because, you know, John,” pursued Bella, pouting a little 
more, “ though he did rather admire me once, it was not my 
fault.” 

“ It was your fault that I admired you,” returned her 
husband, with a look of pride in her, “ and why not your 
fault that he admired you? But, I jealous on that account? 
Why, I must go distracted for life, if I turned jealous of 
every one who used to find my wife beautiful and winning! ” 

“ I am half angry with you, John dear,” said Bella, laugh- 
ing a little, “ and half pleased with you; because you are 
such a stupid old fellow, and yet you say nice things, as if 
you meant them. Don’t be mysterious, sir. What harm do 
you know of Mr. Lightwood ? ” 

“ None, my love.” 

What has he ever done to you, John ? ” 

“ He has never done anything to me, my dear. I know 
no more against him than I know against Mr. Wraybum; 
he has never done anything to me; neither has Mr. Wray- 
bum. And yet I have exactly the same objection to both 
of them.” 

“ Oh, John! ” retorted Bella, as if she were giving him up 
for a bad job, as she used to give up herself. “ You are 
nothing better than a sphinx! And a married sphinx isn’t 
a — isn’t a nice confidential husband,” said Bella, in a tone 
of injury. 

“ Bella, my life,” said John Rokesmith, touching her cheek, 
with a grave smile, as she cast down her eyes and pouted 
again ; “ look at me. I want to speak to you.” 

“ In earnest, Blue Beard of the secret chamber ? ” asked 
Bella, clearing her pretty face. 

In earnest. And I confess to the secret chamber. Don’t 
you remember that you asked me not to declare what I 


EFFECT IS OnrEN TO THE DISCOVERY 


845 


thought of your higher qualities until you had been 
tried ? 

“ Yes, John dear. And I fully meant it, and I fully mean 
it.” 

“ The time will come, my darling — I am no prophet, but 
I say so, — when you will be tried. The time will come, I 
think, when you will undergo a trial through which you will 
never pass quite triumphantly for me, unless you can put 
perfect faith in me.” 

“ Then you may be sure of me, John dear, for I can put 
perfect faith in you, and I do, and I always, always will 
Don’t judge me by a little thing like this, John. In little 
things, I am a little thing myself — I always was. But in 
great things, I hope not; I don’t mean to boast, John dear, 
but I hope not! ” 

He was even better convinced of the truth of what she 
said than she was, as he felt her loving arms about him. If 
the Golden Dustman’s riches had been his to stake, he would 
have staked them to the last farthing on the fidelity through 
good and evil of her affectionate and trusting hearts 

“ Now, I’ll go down to, and go away with, Mr. Light- 
wood,” said Bella, springing up. . “ You are the most creasing 
and tumbling Clumsy-Boots of a packer, John, that ever 
was; but if you’re quite good, and will promise never to do 
so any more (though I don’t know what you have done 1) you 
may pack me a little bag for a night, while I get my 
bonnet on.” 

He gaily complied, and she tied her dimpled chin up, and 
shook her head into her bonnet, and pulled out the bows of 
her bonnet-strings, and put her gloves on, finger by finger, 
and finally got them on her little plump hands, and bade 
him good-bye and went down. Mr. Lightwood’s impatience 
was much relieved when he found her dressed for departure. 

“ Mr. Rokesmith goes with us ? ” he said, hesitating, with 
a look towards the door. 

'' Oh, I forgot! ” replied Bella. His best compliments. 
His face is swollen to the size of two faces, and he is to go 
to bed directly, poor fellow, to wait for the doctor, who is 
coming to lance him.’^ 

“ It is curious,” observed Lightwood, that I have never 


846 


oun :,iuTUAL feiend 


yet seen Mfo Rokesmitli, though we have been engaged in 
the same affairs/’ 

“ Really? ” said the unblushing Bella. 

“ I begin to think/’ observed Lightwood, “ that I never 
shall see him.” 

“ These things happen so oddly sometimes,” said Bella 
with a steady countenance, “ that there seems a kind of 
fatality in them. But I am quite ready, Mr. Light- 
wood.” 

They started directly, in a little carriage that Lightwood 
had brought with him from never-to-be-forgotten Green- 
wich; and from Greenwich they started directly for London; 
and in London they waited at a railway station until such 
time as the Reverend Frank Milvey and Margaretta his wife, 
with whom Mortimer Lightwood had been already in confer- 
ence, should come and join them. 

That worthy couple were delayed by a portentous old 
parishioner of the female gender, who was one of the plagues 
of their lives, and with whom they bore with most exem- 
plary sweetness and good-humour, notwithstanding her 
having an infection of absurdity about her, that communi- 
cated itself to eve ly thing with which, and everybody with 
whom, she came in contact. She was a member of the 
Reverend Frank’s congregation, and made a point of distin- 
guishing herself in that body, by conspicuously weeping at 
everything, however cheering, said by the Reverend Frank 
in his public ministration; also by applying to herself the 
various lamentations of David, and complaining in a person- 
ally injured manner (much in arrear of the clerk and the 
rest of the respondents) that her enemies were digging pit- 
falls about her, and breaking her with rods of iron. Indeed, 
this old widow discharged herself of that portion of the 
Morning and Evening Service as if she were lodging a com- 
plaint on oath and applying for a warrant before a magis- 
trate. But this was not her most inconvenient characteristic, 
for that took the form of an impression, usually recurring in 
inclement weather and at about daybreak, that she had 
something on her mind and stood in immediate need of the 
Reverend Frank to come and take it off. Many a time had 
that kind creature got up, and gone out to Mrs. Sprodgkin 


EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DISCOVERY 847 

(such was the disciple’s name), suppressing a strong sense of 
her comicality by his strong sense of duty, and perfectly 
knowing that nothing but a cold would come of it. How- 
ever, beyond themselves, the Reverend Rrank Milvey and 
Mrs. Milvey seldom hinted that Mrs. Sprodgkin was hardly 
worth the trouble she gave; but both made the best of her, 
as they did of all their troubles. 

This very exacting member of the fold appeared to be 
endowed with a sixth sense, in regard of knowing when the 
Reverend Frank Milvey least desired her company, and with 
promptitude appearing in his little hall. Consequently, 
when the Reverend Frank had willingly engaged that he 
and his wife would accompany Lightwood back, he said, as 
a matter of course: “ We must make haste to get out, Mar- 
garetta, my dear, or we shall be descended on by Mrs. 
Sprodgkin.” To which Mrs. Milvey replied, in her pleas- 
antly emphatic way, “ Oh yes, for she is such a marplot, 
Frank, and does worry so! ” Words that were scarcely ut- 
tered when their theme was announced as in faithful attend- 
ance below, desiring counsel on a spiritual matter. The points 
on which Mrs. Sprodgkin sought elucidation being seldom 
of a pressing nature (as Who begat Whom, or some infor- 
mation concerning the Amorites), Mrs. Milvey on this special 
occasion resorted to the device of buying her off with a 
present of tea and sugar, and a loaf and butter. These gifts 
Mrs. Sprodgkin accepted, but still insisted on dutifully 
remaining in the hall, to curtsey to the Reverend Frank 
as he came forth. Who, incautiously saying in his genial 
manner, “Well, Sally, there you are!” involved himself in 
a discursive address from Mrs. Sprodgkin, revolving around 
the result that she regarded tea and sugar in the light of 
myrrh and frankincense, and considered bread and butter 
identical with locusts and wild honey. Having communi- 
cated this edifying piece of information, Mrs. Sprodgkin was 
left still unadjourned in the hall, and Mr. and Mrs. Milvey 
hurried in a heated condition to the railway station. All 
of which is here recorded to the honour of that good Chris- 
tian pair, representatives of hundreds of other good Christian 
pairs as conscientious and as useful, who merge the small- 
ness of their work in its greatness, and feel in no danger of 


848 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


losing dignity when they adapt themselves to incompre- 
hensible humbugs. 

“ Detained at the last moment by one who had a claim 
upon me,” was the Reverend Frank’s apology to Lightwood, 
taking no thought to himself. To which Mrs. Milvey added, 
taking thought for him, like the championing little wife she 
was: “ Oh yes, detained at the last moment. But as to the 
claim, Frank, I must say that I do think you are over-con- 
siderate sometimes, and allow that to be a little abused.” 

Bella felt conscious, in spite of her late pledge for herself, 
that her husband’s absence would give disagreeable occasion 
for surprise to the Milveys. Nor could she appear quite at 
her ease when Mrs. Milvey asked: 

“ How is Mr. Rokesmith, and is he gone before us, or does 
he follow us ? ” 

It becoming necessary, upon this, to send him to bed 
again and hold him in waiting to be lanced again, Bella 
did it. But not half as well on the second occasion as on 
the first; for, a twice-told white one, seems almost to become 
a black one when you are not used to it. 

“Oh dear!'’ said Mrs. Milvey, “I am so sorry! Mr. 
Rokesmith took such an interest in Lizzie Hexam, when we 
were there before. And if we had only known of his face, 
we could have given him something that would have kept it 
down long enough for so short a purpose.” 

By way of making the white one whiter, Bella hastened 
to stipulate that he was not in pain. Mrs. Milvey was so 
glad of it. 

“ I don’t know how it is,” said Mrs. Milvey, “ and I am 
sure you don’t, Frank, but the clergy and their wives seem to 
cause swelled faces. Whenever I take notice of a child in 
the school, it seems to me as if its face swelled instantly. 
Frank never makes acquaintance with a new old woman, but 
she gets the face-ache. And another thing is, we do make 
the poor children sniff so. I don’t know how we do it, and I 
should be so glad not to; but the more we take notice of them, 
the more they sniff. Just as they do when the text is given 
out. — Frank, that’s a schoolmaster. I have seen him 
somewhere.” 

The reference was to a young man of reserved appearance. 


EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DISCOVERY 849 

In a coat and waistcoat of black and pantaloons of pepper 
and salt. He had come into the office of the station, from 
its interior, in an unsettled way, immediately after Light- 
wood had gone out to the train; and he had been hurriedly 
reading the printed bills and notices on the wall. He had 
had a wandering interest in what was said among the people 
waiting there and passing to and fro. He had drawn nearer, 
at about the time when Mrs. Milvey mentioned Lizzie 
Hexam, and had remained near since, though always glanc- 
ing towards the door by which Lightwood had gone out. 
He stood with his back towards them, and his gloved hands 
clasped behind him. There was now so evident a faltering 
upon him, expressive of indecision whether or no he should 
express his having heard himself referred to, that Mr. Milvey 
spoke to him. 

“ I cannot recall your name,” he said, “ but I remember to 
have seen you in your school.” 

My name is Bradley Headstone, sir,” he replied, backing 
into a more retired place. 

“ I ought to have remembered it,” said Mr. Milvey, giving 
him his hand. I hope you are well ? A little overworked, 
I am afraid ? ” 

“ Yes, I am overworked just at present, sir.” 

“ Had no play in your last holiday time ? ” 

“ No, sir.” 

‘‘All work and no play, Mr. Headstone, will not make 
dulness, in your case, I dare say; but it will make dyspepsia, 
if you don’t take care.” 

‘‘ I will endeavour to take care, sir. Might I beg leave to 
speak to you, outside, a moment ? ” 

“ By all means.” 

It was evening, and the office was well lighted. The 
schoolmaster, who had never remitted his watch on Light- 
wood’s door, now moved by another door to a corner without, 
where there was more shadow than light; and said, pluck- 
ing at his gloves: 

“ One of your ladies, sir, mentioned within my hearing a 
name that I am acquainted with; I may say, well acquainted 
with. The name of the sister of an old pupil of mine. He 
was my pupil for a long time, and has got on and gone 


850 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


upward rapidly. The name of Hexam. The name of Lizzie 
Hexam.” He seemed to be a shy man, struggling against 
nervousness, and spoke in a very constrained way. The 
break he set between his last two sentences was quite em- 
barrassing to his hearer. 

“ Yes,” replied Mr, Milvev. “ We are going down to see 
her.” 

“ I gathered as much, sir. I hope there is nothing amiss 
with the sister of my old pupil ? I hope no bereavement has 
befallen her. I hope she is in no affliction ? Has lost no — 
relation ? ” 

Mr. Milvey thought this a man with a very odd manner, 
and a dark downward look: but he answered in his usual 
open way. 

“ I am glad to tell you, Mr. Headstone, that the sister of 
your old pupil has not sustained any such loss. You thought 
I might be going down to bury some one ? ” 

“ That may have been the connection of ideas, sir, with 
your clerical character, but I was not conscious of it. — Then 
you are not, sir ? ” 

A man with a very odd manner indeed, and with a lurking 
look that was quite oppressive. 

“ No. In fact,” said Mr. Milvey, “ since you are so in- 
terested in the sister of your old pupil, I may as well tell you 
that I am going down to marry her.” 

The schoolmaster started back. “ Not to marry her my- 
self,” said Mr. Milvey, with a smile, “ because I have a wife 
already. To perform the marriage service at her wedding.” 

Bradley Headstone caught hold of a pillar behind him. 
If Mr. Milvey knew an ashy face when he saw it, he saw it 
then. 

“ You are quite ill, Mr. Headstone! ” 

“ It is not much, sir. It will pass over very soon. I am 
accustomed to be seized with giddiness. Don’t let me detain 
you, sir; I stand in need of no assistance, I thank you. Much 
obliged by your sparing me these minutes of your time.” 

As Mr. Milvey, who had no more minutes to spare, made 
a suitable reply and turned back into the office, he observed 
the schoolmaster to lean against the pillar with his hat in his 
hand, and to pull at his neckcloth as if he were trying to tear 


EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DISCOVERY 


851 


it off. The Reverend Frank accordingly directed the notice 
of one of the attendants to him, by saying: “There is a 
person outside who seems to be really ill, and to require 
some help, though he says he does not.” 

Light wood had by this time secured their places, and the 
departure-bell was about to be rung. They took their seats, 
and were beginning to move out of the station, when the 
same attendant came running along the platform looking 
into all the carriages. 

“ Oh! You are here, sir! ” he said, springing on the step, 
and holding the window-frame by his elbow, as the carriage 
moved. “ That person you pointed out to me is in a fit.” 

“ I infer from what he told me that he is subject to such 
attacks. He will come to, in the air, in a little while.” 

He was took very bad to be sure, and was biting and 
knocking about him (the man said) furiously. Would the 
gentleman give him his card, as he had seen him first? The 
gentleman did so, with the explanation that he knew no more 
of the man attacked than that he w^as a man of very respect- 
able occupation, who had said he was out of health, as his 
appearance would of itself have indicated. The attendant 
received the card, watched his opportunity for sliding down, 
slid down, and so it ended. 

Then the train rattled among the housetops, and among 
the ragged sides of houses torn down to make way for it, and 
over the swarming streets and under the fruitful earth, until 
it shot across the river: bursting over the quiet surface like 
a bomb-shell, and gone again as if it had exploded in the 
rush of smoke and steam and glare. A little more, and again 
it roared across the river, a great rocket: spurning the watery 
turnings and doublings with ineffable contempt, and going 
straight to its end, as Father Time goes to his. To whom it 
is no matter what living waters run high or low, refiect the 
heavenly lights and darknesses, produce their little growth 
of weeds and flowers, turn here, turn there, are noisy or still, 
are troubled or at rest, for their course has one sure termina- 
tion, though their sources and devices are many. 

Then, a carriage ride succeeded, near the solemn river, 
stealing away by night, as all things steal away, by night and 
by day, so quietly yielding to the attraction of the loadstone 


852 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


rock of Eternity ; and the nearer they drew to the chamber 
where Eugene lay, the more they feared that they might 
find his wanderings done. At last they saw its dim light 
shining out, and it gave them hope; though Lightwood 
faltered as he thought: '‘If he were gone, she would still 
be sitting by him.” 

But he lay quiet, half in stupor, half in sleep. Bella, 
entering with a raised admonitory finger, kissed Lizzie softly, 
but said not a word. Neither did any of them speak, but all 
sat down at the foot of the bed, silently waiting. And now, 
in this night-watch, mingling with the flow of the river and 
with the rush of the train, came the questions into Bella’s 
mind again: What could be in the depths of that mystery 
of John’s ? Why was it that he had never been seen by Mr. 
Lightwood, whom he still avoided? When would that trial 
come, through which her faith in, and her duty to, her dear 
husband, was to carry her, rendering him triumphant? For 
that had been his term. Her passing through the trial was 
to make the man she loved with all her heart triumphant. 
Term not to sink out of sight in Bella’s breast. 

Far on in the night, Eugene opened his eyes. He was 
sensible, and said at once: “ How does the time go? Has 
our Mortimer come back?” 

Lightwood was there immediately, to answer for himself. 
“ Yes, Eugene, and all is ready.” 

“ Dear boy,” returned Eugene wifli a smile, " we both 
thank you heartily. Lizzie, tell them how welcome they are, 
and that I would be eloquent if I could.” 

” There is no need,” said Mr. Milvey. ” We know it. 
Are you better, Mr. Wrayburn ? ” 

“ I am much happier,” said Eugene. 

” Much better too, I hope? ” 

Eugene turned his eyes towards Lizzie, as if to spare her, 
and answered nothing. 

Then they all stood around the bed, and Mr. Milvey, 
opening his book, began the service; so rarely associated 
with the shadow of death; so inseparable in the mind from 
a flush of life and gaiety and hope and health and joy. 
Bella thought how different from her own sunny little wedding, 
and wept. Mrs. Milvey overflowed with pity, and wept too. 


EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DISCOVERY 


853 


The dolls’ dressmaker, with her hands before her face, wept in 
her golden bower. Reading in a low clear voice, and bend- 
ing over Eugene, who kept his eyes upon him, Mr. Milvey 
did his office with suitable simplicity. As the bridegroom 
could not move his hand, they touched his fingers with the 
ring, and so put it on the bride. When the two plighted their 
troth, she laid her hand on his, and kept it there. When the 
ceremony was done, and all the rest departed from the room, 
she drew her arm under his head, and laid her own head 
down upon the pillow by his side. 

“ Undraw the curtains, my dear girl,” said Eugene, after 
a while, “ and let us see our wedding-day.” 

The sun was rising, and his first rays struck into the room 
£us she came back and put her lips to his. “ I bless the 
day! ” said Eugene. “ I bless the day! ” said Lizzie. 

‘‘ You have made a poor marriage of it, my sweet wdfe,” 
said Eugene. A shattered graceless fellow, stretched at 
his length here, and next to nothing for you when you are 
a young widow.” 

“ I have made the marriage that I would have given all 
the world to dare to hope for,” she replied. 

“ You have thrown yourself away,” said Eugene, shaking 
his head. “But you have followed the treasure of your 
heart. My justification is, that you had thrown that away 
first, dear girl! ” 

“ No. I had given it to you.” 

“ The same thing, my poor Lizzie! ” 

“ Hush, hush! A very different thing.” 

There were tears in his eyes, and she besought him to 
close them. “No,” said Eugene, again shaking his head; 
“ let me look at you, Lizzie, while I can. You brave devoted 
girl! You heroine!” 

Her own eyes filled under his praises. And when he 
mustered strength to move his wounded head a very little 
way, and lay it on her bosom, the tears of both fell. 

“ Lizzie,” said Eugene, after a silence: “ when you see me 
wandering away from this refuge that I have so ill deserved, 
speak to me by my name, and I think I shall come 
back.” 

“ Yes, dear Eugene.” 


854 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


There!” he exclaimed, smiling. “ I should have gone 
then but for that! ” 

A little while afterwards, when he appeared to be sinking 
into insensibility, she said, in a calm loving voice: “ Eugene, 
my dear husband!” He immediately answered: “There 
again! You see how you can recall me!” and afterwards, 
when he could not speak, he still answered by a slight move- 
ment of his head upon her bosom. 

The sun was high in the sky when she gently disengaged 
herself to give him the stimulants and nourishment he 
required. The utter helplessness of the wreck of him that 
lay cast ashore there now alarmed her, but he himself ap- 
peared a little more hopeful. 

“Ah, my beloved Lizzie! ” he said, faintly. “ How shall 
I ever pay all I owe you, if I recover! ” 

“ Don’t be ashamed of me,” she replied, “ and you will 
have more than paid all.” 

“ It would require a life, Lizzie, to pay all; more than a 
life.” 

“Live for that, then; live for me, Eugene; live to see 
how hard I will try to improve myself, and never to dis- 
credit you.” 

“ My darling girl,” he replied, rallying more of his old 
manner than he had ever yet got together. “ On the con- 
trary, I have been thinking whether it is not the best thing 
I can do, to die.” 

“ The best thing you can do, to leave me with a broken 
heart ? ” 

“ I don’t mean that, my dear girl. I was not thinking of 
that. What I was thinking of was this. Out of your com- 
passion for me, in this maimed and broken state, you make 
so much of me — you think so well of me — you love me so 
dearly! ” 

“ Heaven knows I love you dearly! ” 

“And Heaven knows I prize it! Well. If I live, you’ll 
find me out.” 

“ I shall find out that my husband has a mine of purpose 
and energy, and will turn it to the best account? ” 

“ I hope so, dearest Lizzie,” said Eugene wistfully, and 
yet somewhat whimsically. “ I hope so. But I can’t summon 


EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DISCOVERY 855 

the vanity to think so. How can I think so, looking back 
on such a trifling, wasted youth as mine! I humbly hope 
it; but I daren’t believe it. There is a sharp misgiving in 
my conscience that if I were to live, I should disappoint 
your good opinion and my own — and that I ought to die, 
my dearl” 


CHAPTER XII 


THE PASSING SHADOW 

The winds and tides rose and fell a certain number of 
times, the earth moved round the sun a certain number of 
times, the ship upon the ocean made her voyage safely, and 
brought a baby Bella home. Then who so blest and happy 
as Mrs. John Rokesmith, saving and excepting Mr. John 
Rokesmith ! 

“ Would you not like to be rich now, my darling? ” 

“How can you ask me such a question, John dear? 
Am I not rich ? ” 

These were among the first words spoken near the baby 
Bella as she lay asleep. She soon proved to be a baby of 
wonderful intelligence, evincing the strongest objection to 
her grandmother’s society, and being invariably seized with 
a painful acidity of the stomach when that dignified lady 
honoured her with any attention. 

It was charming to see Bella contemplating this baby, and 
finding out her own dimples in that tiny reflection, as if 
she were looking in the glass without personal vanity. Her 
cherubic father justly remarked to her husband that the 
baby seemed to make her younger than before, reminding 
him of the days when she had a pet doll and used to talk 
to it as she carried it about. The world might have been chal- 
lenged to produce another baby who had such a store of 
pleasant nonsense said and sung to it, as Bella said and sung 
to this baby; or who was dressed and undressed as often in 
four-and-twenty hours as Bella dressed and undressed this 
baby; or who was held behind doors and poked out to stop 
its father^s way when he came home, as this baby was; or, in a 
word, who did half the number of baby things, through 


THE PASSING SHADOW 857 

the lively invention of a gay and proud young mother, that 
this inexhaustible baby did. 

The inexhaustible baby was two or three months old, 
when Bella began to notice a cloud upon her husband’s brow. 
Watching it, she saw a gathering and deepening anxiety there, 
which caused her great disquiet. More than once, she awoke 
him muttering in his sleep; and, though he muttered nothing 
worse than her own name, it was plain to her that his restless- 
ness originated in some load of care. Therefore, Bella at 
length put in her claim to divide this load and bear her half 
of it. 

“You know, John dear,” she said, cheerily reverting to 
their former conversation, “ that I hope I may safely be 
trusted in great things. And it surely cannot be a little thing 
that causes you so much uneasiness. It’s very considerate 
of you to try to hide from me that you are uncomfortable 
about something, but it’s quite impossible to be done, John 
love.” ^ 

“ I admit that I am rather uneasy, my own.” 

“ Then please to tell me what about, sir.” 

But no, he evaded that. “ Never mind! ” thought Bella, 
resolutely. “ John requires me to put perfect faith in him, 
and he shall not be disappointed.” 

She went up to London one day, to meet him, in order 
that they might make some purchases. She found him 
waiting for her at her journey’s end, and they walked away 
together through the streets. He was in gay spirits, though 
^ still harping on that notion of their being rich ; and he said, 
now let them make believe that yonder fine carriage was 
theirs, and that it was waiting to take them home to a fine 
house they had; what would Bella, in that case, best like to 
find in the house? Well! Bella didn’t know: already having 
everything she wanted, she couldn’t say. But, by degrees 
she was led on to confess that she would like to have for the 
inexhaustible baby such a nursery as never was seen. It was 
to be “ a very rainbow for colours,” as she was quite sure baby 
noticed colours; and the staircase was to be adorned with 
the most exquisite flowers, as she was absolutely certain baby 
noticed flowers; and there was to be an aviary somewhere, of 
the loveliest little birds, as there was not the smallest doubt 


858 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


in the world that baby noticed birds. Was there nothing 
else ? No, John dear. The predilections of the inexhaustible 
baby being provided for, Bella could think of nothing else. 

They were chatting on in this way, and John had suggested, 
“ No jewels for your own wear, for instance ? ” and Bella had 
replied laughing, Oh ! if he came to that, yes, there might be 
a beautiful ivory case of jewels on the dressing-table; when 
these pictures were in a moment darkened and blotted out. 

They turned a corner and met Mr. Lightwood. 

He stopped as if he were petrified by the sight of Bella’s 
husband, who in the same moment had changed colour. 

“ Mr. Lightwood and I have met before,” he said. 

‘‘ Met before, John ? ” Bella repeated in a tone of wonder. 
“ Mr. Lightwood told me he had never seen you.” 

“ I did not then know that I had,” said Lightwood, dis- 
composed on her account. “ I believed that I had only heard 
of Mr. Rokesmith.” With an emphasis on the name. 

“ When Mr. Lightwood saw me, my love,” o4served her 
husband, not avoiding his eye, but looking at him, my name 
was Julius Handford.” 

Julius Handford! The name that Bella had so often seen 
in old newspapers, when she was an inmate of Mr. Boffin’s 
house! Julius Handford, who had been publicly entreated 
to appear, and for intelligence of whom a reward had been 
publicly offered! 

I would have avoided mentioning it in your presence,” 
said Lightwood to Bella, delicately; “ but since your hus 
band mentions it himself, I must confirm his strange admis- 
sion. I saw him as Mr. Julius Handford, and I afterwards* 
(unquestionably to his knowledge) took great pains to trace 
him out.” 

‘‘ Quite true. But it was not my object or my interest,” 
said Rokesmith, quietly, “ to be traced out.” 

Bella looked from the one to the other in amazement. 

“ Mr. Lightwood,” pursued her husband, “ as chance has 
brought us face to face at last — which is not to be wondered 
at, for the wonder is that, in spite of all my pains to the 
contrary, chance has not confronted us together sooner — 

I have only to remind you that you have been at my house, 
and to add that I have not changed my residence.” 




THE PASSING SHADOW 


859 


Sir,” returned Lightwood, with a meaning glance towards 
Bella, “ my position is a truly painful one. I hope that no 
complicity in a very dark transaction may attach to you, but 
you cannot fail to know that your own extraordinary conduct 
has laid you under suspicion.” 

” I know it has,” was all the reply. 

“ My professional duty,” said Lightwood, hesitating, with 
another glance towards Bella, “ is greatly at variance with 
my personal inclination: but I doubt, Mr. Handford, or 
Mr. Rokesmith, whether I am justified in taking leave of you 
here, with your whole course unexplained.” 

Bella caught her husband by the hand. 

“ Don’t be alarmed, my darling. Mr. Lightwood will find 
that he is quite justified in taking leave of me here. At all 
events,” added Rokesmith, “ he will find that I mean to take 
leave of him here.” 

” I think, sir,” said Lightwood, you can scarcely deny 
that when I came to your house on the occasion to which 
/you have referred, you avoided me of a set purpose.” 

” Mr. Lightwood, I assure you, I have no disposition to 
deny it, or intention to deny it. I should have continued to 
avoid you, in pursuance of the same set purpose, for a short 
time lj>nger, if we had not met now. I am going straight 
home, and shall remain at home to-morrow until noon. 
Hereafter, I hope we may be better acquainted. Good day.” 

Lightwood stood irresolute, but Bella’s husband passed him 
in the steadiest manner, with Bella on his arm; and they 
went home without encountering any further remonstrance 
or molestation from any one. 

When they had dined and were alone, John Rokesmith 
said to his wife, who had preserved her cheerfulness: “And 
you don’t ask me, my dear, why I bore that name ? ” 

“ No, John love. I should dearly like to know, of course; ” 
(which her anxious face confirmed); “ but I wait until you 
can tell me of your own free will. You asked me if I could 
have perfect faith in you, and I said yes, and I meant it.” 

It did not escape Bella’s notice that he began to look 
triumphant. She wanted no strengthening in her firmness; 
but if she had had need of any, she would have derived it 
from his kindling face. 


860 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


You cannot have been prepared, my dearest, for such a 
discovery as that this mysterious Mr. Handford was identical 
with your husband ? ” 

“ No, John dear, of course not. But you told me to 
prepare to be tried, and I prepared myself.” 

He drew her to nestle closer to him, and told her it would 
soon be over, and the truth would soon appear. “ And 
now,” he went on, ** lay stress, my dear, on these words that 
I am going to add. I stand in no kind of peril, and I can 
by possibility be hurt at no one’s hand.” 

“ You are quite, quite sure of that, John dear? ” 

“ Not a hair of my head! Moreover, I have done no 
wrong, and have injured no man. Shall I swear it ? ” 

“ No, John! ” cried Bella, laying her hand upon his lips, 
with a proud look. “ Never to me! ” 

“ But circumstances,” he went on — “I can, and I will, 
disperse them in a moment — have surrounded me with 
one of the strangest suspicions ever known. You heard 
Mr. Lightwood speak of a dark transaction ? ” 

“ Yes, John.” 

“ You are prepared to hear explicitly what he meant? ” 

“ Yes, John.” 

“ My life, he meant the murder of John Harmon, your 
allotted husband.” ♦ 

With a fast palpitating heart, Bella grasped him by the 
arm. “You cannot be suspected, John ? ” 

“ Dear love, I can be — for I am! ” 

There was silence between them, as she sat looking in his 
face, with the colour quite gone from her own face and lips. 
“ How dare they! ” she cried at length, in a burst of generous 
indignation. “ My beloved husband, how dare they! ” 

He caught her in his arms as she opened hers, and held her 
to his heart. “ Even knowing this, you can trust me, Bella ? ” 
“ I can trust you, John dear, with all my soul. If I could 
not trust you, I should fall dead at your feet.” 

The kindling triumph in his face was bright indeed, as he 
looked up and rapturously exclaimed, what had he done to 
deserve the blessing of this dear confiding creature’s heart! 
Again she put her hand upon his lips, saying, “ Hush! ” and 
then told him, in her own little natural pathetic way, that if 


THE PASSING SHADOW 


861 


all the world were against him, she would be for him; that 
if all the world repudiated him, she would believe him; that 
if he were infamous in other eyes, he would be honoured in 
hers; and that, under the worst unmerited suspicion, she 
could devote her life to consoling him, and imparting her 
own faith in him to their little child. 

A twilight calm of happiness then succeeding to their 
radiant noon, they remained at peace, until a strange voice 
in the room startled them both. The room being by that 
time dark, the voice said, “ Don’t let the lady be alarmed 
by my striking a light,” and immediately a match rattled, 
and glimmered in a hand. The hand and the match and the 
voice were then seen by John Rokesmith to belong to Mr. 
Inspector, once meditatively active in this chronicle. 

“ I take the liberty,” said Mr. Inspector, in a business-like 
manner, “ to bring myself to the recollection of Mr. Julius 
Handford, who gave me his name and address down at our 
place a considerable time ago. Would the lady object to 
my lighting the pair of candles on the chimneypiece, to 
throw a further light upon the subject? No? Thank you, 
ma’am. Now, we/look cheerful.” 

Mr. Inspector, in a dark-blue buttoned-up frock coat and 
pantaloons, presented a serviceable, half-pay. Royal Arms 
kind of appearance, as he applied his pocket-handkerchief to 
his nose and bowed to the lady. 

‘‘You favoured me, Mr. Handford,” said Mr. Inspector, 
“ by writing down your name and address, and I produce the 
piece of paper on which you wrote it. Comparing the same 
with the writing on the %-leaf of this book on the table — 
and a sweet pretty volume it is — I find the writing of the 
entry, ‘ Mrs. John Rokesmith. From her husband on her 
birthday ’ — and very gratifying to the feelings such memo- 
rials are — to correspond exactly. Can I have a word with 
you?” 

“ Certainly. Here, if you please,” was the reply. 

“ Why,” retorted Mr. Inspector, again using his pocket- 
handkerchief, “ though there’s nothing for the lady to be at 
all alarmed at, still, ladies are apt to take alarm at matters of 
business — being of that fragile sex that they’re not accus- 
tomed to them when not of a strictly domestic character — 


862 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


and I do generally make it a rule to propose retirement from 
the presence of ladies, before entering upon business topics. 
Or, perhaps,” Mr. Inspector hinted, “ if the lady was to step 
up-stairs, and take a look at baby now! ” 

“ Mrs. Rokesmith,” — her husband was beginning; when 
Mr. Inspector, regarding the words as an introduction, said, 
“ Happy, I am sure, to have the honour.” And bowed, with 
gallantry. 

“ Mrs. Rokesmith,” resumed her husband, “ is satisfied 
that she can have no reason for being alarmed, whatever the 
business is.” 

“ Really? Is that so? ” said Mr. Inspector. “ But it’s a 
sex to live and learn from, and there’s nothing a lady can’t 
accomplish when she once fully gives her mind to it. It’s 
the case with my own wife. Well, ma’am, this good gentle- 
man of yours has given rise to a rather large amount of 
trouble which might have been avoided if he had come for- 
ward and explained himself. Well, you see! he didn't come 
forward and explain himself. Consequently, now that we 
meet, him and me, you’ll say — and say right — that there’s 
nothing to be alarmed at in my proposing to him to come 
forward — or, putting the same meaning in another form, to 
come along with me — and explain himself.” 

When Mr. Inspector put it in that other form, “ to come 
along with me,” there was a relishing roll in his voice, and 
his eye beamed with an official lustre. 

“Do you propose to take me into custody?” inquired 
John Rokesmith, very coolly. 

“ Why argue ? ” returned Mr. Inspector, in a comfortable 
sort of remonstrance; “ ain’t it enough that I propose that 
you shall come along with me ? ” 

“ For what reason ? ” 

“ Lord bless my soul and body! ” returned Mr. Inspector, 
“ I wonder at it in a man of your education. Why 
argue? ” 

“ What do you charge against me ? ” 

“ I wonder at you before a lady,” said Mr. Inspector, 
shaking his head reproachfully: “ I wonder, brought up as 
you have been, you haven’t a more delicate mind! I charge 
you, then, with being some way concerned in the Harmon 


THE PASSING SHADOW 


863 


Murder. I don’t say whether before, or in, or after, the fact. 
I don’t say whether with having some knowledge of it that 
hasn’t come out.” 

“ You don’t surprise me. I foresaw your visit this after- 
noon.” 

Don’t! ” said Mr. Inspector. “ Why, why argue? It’s 
my duty to inform you that whatever you say will be used 
against you.” 

“ I don’t think it will.” 

But I tell you it will,” said Mr. Inspector. Now, having 
received the caution, do you still say that you foresaw my 
visit this afternoon ? ” 

“Yes. And I will say something more if you will step 
with me into the next room.” 

With a reassuring kiss on the lips of the frightened Bella, 
her husband (to whom Mr. Inspector obligingly offered his 
arm) took up a candle, and withdrew with that gentleman. 
They were a full half-hour in conference. When they 
returned, Mr. Inspector looked considerably astonished. 

“ I have invited this worthy officer, my dear,” said John, 
“ to make a short excursion with me in which you shall be a 
sharer. He will take something to eat and drink, I dare say, 
on your invitation, while you are getting your bonnet on.” 

Mr. Inspector declined eating, but assented to the pro- 
posal of a glass of brandy and water. Mixing this cold, and 
pensively consuming it, he broke at intervals into such solilo- 
quies as that he never did know such a move, that he never had 
been so gravelled, and that what a game was this to try the 
sort of stuff a man’s opinion of himself was made of! Con- 
currently with these comments, he more than once burst out 
a-laughing, with the half-enjoying and half-piqued air of 
a man who had given up a good conundrum after much 
guessing, and been told the answer. Bella was so timid of 
him, that she noted these things in a half-shrinking, half- 
perceptive way, and similarly noted that there was a great 
change in his manner towards John. That coming along 
with-him deportment was now lost in long musing looks at 
John and at herself, and sometimes in slow heavy rubs of his 
hand across his forehead, as if he were ironing out the creases 
which his deep pondering made there He had had some 


8G4 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


coughing and whistling satellites, secretly gravitating towards 
him about the premises, but they were now dismissed, and he 
eyed John as if he had meant to do him a public service, but 
had unfortunately been anticipated. Whether Bella might 
have noted anything more, if she had been less afraid of him, 
she could not determine; but it was all inexplicable to her, 
and not the faintest flash of the real state of the case broke 
in upon her mind. Mr. Inspector’s increased notice of her- 
self, and knowing way of raising his eyebrows when their 
eyes by any chance met, as if he put the question “ Don’t 
you see ? ” augmented her timidity, and, consequently, her 
perplexity. For all these reasons, when he and she and John, 
at towards nine o’clock of a winter evening, went to London, 
and began driving from London Bridge, among low-lying 
water-side wharves and docks and strange places, Bella was 
in the state of a dreamer; perfectly unable to account for 
her being there, perfectly unable to forecast what would 
happen next, or whither she was going, or why; certain of 
nothing in the immediate present, but that she conflded in 
John, and that John seemed somehow to be getting more 
triumphant. But what a certainty was that! 

They alighted at last at the corner of a court, where there 
was a building with a bright lamp and a wicket gate. Its 
orderly appearance was very unlike that of the surrounding 
neighbourhood, and was explained by the inscription Police 
Station. 

We are not going in here, John ? ” said Bella, clinging 
to him. 

Yes, my dear; but of our own accord. We shall come 
out again as easily, never fear.” 

The whitewashed room was pure white as of old, the 
methodical book-keeping was in peaceful progress as of old, 
and some distant howler was banging against a cell-door as 
of old. The sanctuary was not a permanent abiding-place, 
but a kind of criminal Pickford’s. The lower passions and 
vices were regularly ticked off in the books, warehoused in 
the cells, carted away as per accompanying invoice, and left 
little mark upon it. 

Mr. Inspector placed two chairs for his visitors before the 
fire^ and communed in a low voice with a brother of his 


THE PASSING SHADOW 


865 


order (also of a half-pay and Royal Arms aspect), who, judged 
only by his occupation at the moment, might have been a 
writing-master setting copies. Their conference done, Mr. 
Inspector returned to the fireplace, and, having observed 
that he would step round to the Fellowships and see how 
matters stood, went out. He soon came back again, saying, 
“ Nothing could be better, for they’re at supper with Miss 
Abbey in the bar; ” and then they all three went out to- 
gether. 

StiU, as in a dream, Bella found herself entering a snu;;, 
old-fashioned public-house, and found herself smuggled into 
a little three-cornered room nearly opposite the bar of that 
establishment. Mr. Inspector achieved the smuggling of 
herself and John into this queer room, called Cosy in an 
inscription on the door, by entering in the narrow passage 
first in order, and suddenly turning round upon them with 
extended arms, as if they had been two sheep. The room was 
lighted for their reception. 

“ Now,” said Mr. Inspector to John, turning the gas lower, 
“ I’ll mix with ’em in a casual way, and when I say Identifi- 
cation, perhaps you’ll show yourself.” 

John nodded, and Mr. Inspector went alone to the half- 
door of the bar. From the dim doorway of Cosy, within 
which Bella and her husband stood, they could see a comfort- 
able little party of three persons sitting at supper in the bar, 
and could hear everything that was said. 

The three persons were Miss Abbey and two male guests. 
To whom collectively, Mr. Inspector remarked that the 
weather was getting sharp for the time of year. 

“ It need be sharp to suit your wits, sir,” said Miss Abbey. 

What have you got in hand now ? ” 

“ Thanking you for your compliment: not much, Miss 
Abbey,” was Mr. Inspector’s rejoinder. 

“ Who have you got in Cosy? ” asked Miss Abbey. 

“ Only a gentleman and his wife. Miss.” 

And who are they ? If one may ask it without detriment 
to your deep plans in the interests of the honest public? ” 
said Miss Abbey, proud of Mr. Inspector as an administrative 
genius. 

“ They are strangers in this part of the town, Miss Abbey. 


866 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


They are waiting till I shall want the gentleman to show 
himself somewhere, for half a moment/' 

“ While they're waiting," said Miss Abbey, “ couldn't you 
join us ? " 

Mr. Inspector immediately slipped into the bar, and sat 
down at the side of the half-door, with his back towards the 
passage, and directly facing the two guests. “ I don't take 
my supper till later in the night," said he, “ and therefore I 
won’t disturb the compactness of the table. But I’ll take a 
glass of flip, if that’s flip in the jug in the fender." 

“ That’s flip," replied Miss Abbey, “ and it's my making, 
and if even you can And out better, I shall be glad to know 
where.” Filling him, with hospitable hands, a steaming 
tumbler, Miss Abbey replaced the jug by the fire; the com- 
pany not having yet arrived at the flip-stage of their supper, 
but being as yet skirmishing with strong ale. 

“Ah — ^h!" cried Mr. Inspector. “That’s the smack! 
There's not a Detective in the Force, Miss Abbey, that could 
find out better stuff than that." 

“ Glad to hear you say so," rejoined Miss Abbey. “ You 
ought to know, if anybody does.” 

“ Mr. Job Potterson," Mr. Inspector continued, “ I drink 
your health. Mr. Jacob Kibble, I drink yours. Hope you 
have made a prosperous voyage home, gentlemen both." 

Mr. Kibble, an unctuous broad man of few words and 
many mouthfuls, said, more briefly than pointedly, raising 
his ale to his lips: “Same to you." Mr. Job Potterson, a 
semi-seafaring man of obliging demeanour, said, “ Thank 
you, sir." 

“Lord bless my soul and body!” cried Mr. Inspector. 

“ Talk of trades. Miss Abbey, and the way they set their 
marks on men " (a subject which nobody had approached) ; 

“ who wouldn’t know your brother to be a Steward! There’s 
a bright and ready twinkle in his eye, there’s a neatness in 
his action, there’s a smartness in his figure, there’s an air of 
reliability about him in case you wanted a basin, which points 
out the steward! And Mr. Kibble; ain’t he Passenger all 
over? While there’s that mercantile cut upon him which 
would make you happy to give him credit for five hundred 
pound, don’t you see the salt sea shining on him too ? " 


THE PASSING SHADOW 


867 


You do, I dare say,” returned Miss Abbey, ‘‘ but I don’t. 
And as for stewarding, I think it’s time my brother gave 
that up, and took this House in hand on his sister’s retiring. 
The House will go to pieces if he don’t. I wouldn’t sell it 
for any money that could be told out, to a person that I 
couldn’t depend upon to be a Law to the Porters, as I have 
been.” 

“ There you’re right, Miss,” said Mr. Inspector. “ A 
better-kept house is not known to our men. What do I say ? 
Half so well a kept house is not known to our men. Show 
the Force the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, and the Force — 
to a constable — will show you a piece of perfection, Mr. 
Kibble.” 

That gentleman, with a very serious shake of his head, 
subscribed the article. 

“ And talk of Time slipping by you, as if it was an animal 
at rustic sports with his tail soaped,” said Mr. Inspector 
(again, a subject which nobody had approached) ; “ why, well 
you may. Well you may. How has it slipped by us, since 
the time when Mr. Job Potterson here present, Mr. Jacob 
Kibble here present, and an Officer of the Force here present, 
first came together on a matter of Identification ! ” 

Bella’s husband stepped softly to the half-door of the bar, 
and stood there. 

“ How has Time slipped by us,” Mr. Inspector went on 
slowly, with his eyes narrowly observant of the two guests, 

“ since we three very men, at an Inquest in this very house — 
Mr. Kibble? Taken ill, sir? ” 

Mr. Kibble had staggered up, with his lower jaw dropped, 
catching Potterson by the shoulder, and pointing to the 
half-door. He now cried out: “ Potterson! Look! Look 
there ! ” Potterson started up, started back, a^d exclaimed : 

“ Heaven defend us, what’s that? ” Bella’s husband stepped 
back to Bella, took her in his arms (for she was terrified by 
the unintelligible terror of the two men), and shut the door 
of the little room. A hurry of voices succeeded, in which 
Mr. Inspector’s voice was busiest; it gradually slackened 
and sank; and Mr. Inspector reappeared. “ Sharp’s the 
word, sir! ” he said, looking in with a knowing wink. “ We’ll 
get your lady out at once.” Immediately, Bella and her 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


husband were under the stars, making their way back, alone, 
to the vehicle they had kept in waiting. 

All this was most extraordinary, and Bella could make 
nothing of it but that John was in the right. How in the 
right, and how suspected of being in the wrong, she could 
not divine. Some vague idea that he had never really as- 
sumed the name of Handford, and that there was a remark- 
able likeness between him and that mysterious person, 
was her nearest approach to any definite explanation. But 
John was triumphant; that much was made apparent; and 
she could wait for the rest. 

When John came home to dinner next day, he said, sitting 
down on the sofa by Bella and baby Bella: “ My dear, I 
have a piece of news to tell you. I have left the China 
House.” 

As he seemed to like having left it, Bella took it for granted 
that there was no misfortune in the case. 

“ In a word, my love,” said John, “ the China House is 
broken up and abolished. There is no such thing any 
more.” 

“Then, are you already in another House, John? ” 

“ Yes, my darling. I am in another way of business. And 
I am rather better off.” 

The inexhaustible baby was instantly made to congratulate 
him, and to say, with appropriate action on the part of a 
very limp arm and a speckled fist: “ Three cheers, ladies and 
gemplemorums. Hoo — ray!” 

“ I am afraid, my life,” said John, “ that you have become 
very much attached to this cottage.” 

“Afraid I have, John? Of course I have.” 

“ The reason why I said afraid,” returned John, “ is 
because we must move.” 

“ Oh, John! ” 

“ Yes, my dear, we must move. We must have our head- 
quarters in London now. In short, there's a dwelling-house, 
rent-free, attached to my new position, and we must occupy it.” 

“ That a gain, John.” 

“ Yes, my dear, it is undoubtedly a gain.” 

He gave her a very blithe look, and a very sly look. Which 
occasioned the inexhaustible baby to square at him with 


THE PASSING SHADOW 


869 


the speckled fists, and demand in a threatening manner 
what he meant ? 

‘‘ My love, you said it was a gain, and I said it was a 
gain. A very innocent remark, surely.’’ 

“ I won’t,” said the inexhaustible baby, “ — allow — you — 
to make — game — of — my — venerable Ma.” At each 
division administering a soft facer with one of the speckled 
fists. 

John having stooped down to receive these punishing 
visitations, Bella asked him, would it be necessary to move 
soon? Why, yes, indeed (said John) he did propose that 
they should move very soon. Taking the furniture with 
them, of course? (said Bella). Why, no (said John), the fact 
was, that the house was — in a sort of a kind of a way — 
furnished already. 

The inexhaustible baby, hearing this, resumed the offen- 
sive: and said, “But there’s no nursery for me, sir. What 
do you mean, marble-hearted parent ? ” To which the 
marble-hearted parent rejoined that there was a — sort of 
a kind of a nursery — and it might be “ made to do.” “ Made 
to do?” returned the Inexhaustible, administering more 
punishment, “ what do you take me for?” And was then 
turned over on its back in Bella’s lap, and smothered with 
kisses. 

“ But really, John dear,” said Bella, flushed in quite a 
lovely manner by these exercises, “ will the new house, just 
as it stands, do for baby ? That’s the question ? ” 

“ I felt that to be the question,” he returned, “ and there- 
fore I arranged that you should come with me and look at 
it to-morrow morning.” Appointment made, accordingly, 
for Bella to go up with him to-morrow morning; John 
kissed; and Bella delighted. 

When they reached London in pursuance of their little 
plan, they took coach and drove westward. Not only drove 
westward, but drove into that particular westward division 
which Bella had seen last when she turned her face from 
Mr. Boffin’s door. Not only drove into that particular 
division, but drove at last into that very street. Not only 
drove into that very street, but stopped at last at that very 
house. 


870 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ John dear! ” cried Bella, looking out of the window in 
a flutter. “ Do you see where we are? 

“ Yes, my love. The coachman’s quite right.” 

The house-door was opened without any knocking or ring- 
ing, and John promptly helped her out. The servant who 
stood holding the door asked no question of John, neither 
did he go before them or follow them as they went straight 
up-stairs. It was only her husband’s encircling arm, urging 
her on, that prevented Bella from stopping at the foot of 
the staircase. As they ascended, it was seen to be tastefully 
ornamented with most beautiful flowers. 

“ Oh, John ! ” said Bella, faintly. ” What does this mean ? ” 

“ Nothing, my darling, nothing. Let us go on.” 

Going on a little higher, they came to a charming aviary, 
in which a number of tropical birds, more gorgeous in colour 
than the flowers, were flying about; and among those birds 
were gold and silver fish, and mosses, and water-lilies, and 
a fountain, and all manner of wonders. 

“Oh, my dear John!” said Bella. “What does this 
mean ? ” 

“ Nothing, my darling, nothing. Let us go on.” 

They went on, until they came to a door. As John put 
out his hand to open it, Bella caught his hand. 

“ I don’t know what it means, but it’s too much for me. 
Hold me, John love.” 

John caught her up in his arm, and lightly dashed into 
the room with her. 

Behold Mr. and Mrs. Boffin beaming! Behold Mrs. Boffin 
clapping her hands in an ecstasy, running to Bella, with tears 
of joy pouring down her comely face, and folding her to her 
breast, with the words; “ My deary, deary, deary girl, that 
Noddy and me saw married and couldn’t wish joy to, or so 
much as speak to! My deary, deary, deary, wife of John, 
and mother of his little child! My loving, loving, bright 
bright. Pretty Pretty. Welcome to your house and home, 
my deary ! ” 


CHAPTER XIII 


SHOWING HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN HELPED TO SCATTER 
DUST 

In all the first bewilderment of her wonder, the most be- 
wilderingly wonderful thing to Bella was the shining coun- 
tenance of Mr. Boffin. That his wife should be joyous, 
open-hearted, and genial, or that her face should express 
every quality that was large and trusting, and no quality 
that was little or mean, was accordant with Bella’s experi- 
ence. But that he, with a perfectly beneficent air and a 
plump rosy face, should be standing there, looking at her 
and John, like some jovial good spirit, was marvellous. 
For how had he looked when she last saw him in that very 
room (it was the room in which she had given him that 
piece of her mind at parting), and what had become of all 
those crooked lines of suspicion, avarice, and distrust, that 
twisted his visage then ? 

Mrs. Boffin seated Bella on the large ottoman, and seated 
herself beside her, and John, her husband, seated himself on 
the other side of her, and Mr. Boffin stood beaming at every 
one and everything he could see, with surpassing jollity and 
enjoyment. Mrs. Boffin was then taken with a laughing fit 
of clapping her hands and clapping her knees, and rocking 
herself to and fro, and then with another laughing fit of 
embracing Bella, and rocking her to and fro — both fits of 
considerable duration. 

“ Old lady, old lady,” said Mr. Boffin, at length; “ if you 
don’t begin somebody else must.” 

“ I’m a-going to begin. Noddy, my dear,” returned Mrs. 
Boffin. “ Only it isn’t easy for a person to know where to 
begin, when a person is in this state of delight and happi- 
ness. Bella, my dear. Tell me. who’s this?” 


872 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Who is this ? ” repeated Bella. My husband.” 

“ Ah! But tell me his name, deary! ” cried Mrs. Boffin. 

“ Rokesmith.” 

“ No, it ain’t! ” cried Mrs. Boffin, clapping her hands and 
shaking her head. “ Not a bit of it.” 

“ Handford then,” suggested Bella. 

No, it ain’t! ” cried Mrs. Boffin, again clapping her hands 
and shaking her head. “ Not a bit of it.” 

“ At least, his name is John, I suppose ? ” said Bella. 

“ Ah! I should think so, deary! ” cried Mrs. Boffin. 
“ I should hope so! Many and many is the time I have 
called him by his name of John. But what’s his other name, 
his true other name? Give a guess, my pretty.” 

“ I can’t guess,” said Bella, turning her pale face from 
one to another. 

“7 could,” cried Mrs. Boffin, “and what’s more, I did! 
I found him out all in a flash, as I may say, one night. Didn’t 
I, Noddy?” 

“Ay! That the old lady did!” said Mr. Boffin, with 
stout pride in the circumstance. 

“ Harkee to me, deary,” pursued Mrs. Boffin, taking Bella’s 
hands between, her own, and gently beating on them from 
time to time. “ It was after a particular night when John 
had been disappointed — as he thought — in his affections 
It was after a night when John had made an offer to a certain 
young lady, and the certain young lady had refused it. It 
was after a particular night, when he felt himself cast-away- 
like, and had made up his mind to go seek his fortune. It 
was the very next night. My Noddy wanted a paper out of 
his Secretary’s room, and I says to Noddy, ‘ I am going by 
the door, and I’ll ask him for it.’ I tapped at his door, and 
he didn’t hear me. I looked in, and saw him a-sitting lonely 
by his fire, brooding over it. He chanced to look up with 
a pleased kind of smile in my company when he saw me, 
and then in a single moment every grain of the gunpowder, 
that had been lying sprinkled thick about him ever since 
I first set eyes upon him as a man at the Bower, took fire! 
Too many a time had I seen him sitting lonely, when he 
was a poor child, to be pitied, heart and hand! Too many 
a time had I seen him in need of being brightened up with 


HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SCATTERED DUST 873 

a comforting word! Too many and too many a time to be 
mistaken, when that glimpse of him come at last! No! no! 
I just makes out to cry, ‘ I know you now! You’re John!’ 
And he catches me as I drops. — So what,” said Mrs. Boffin, 
breaking off in the rush of her speech to smile most radiantly, 
“ might you think by this time that your husband’s name 
was, dear? ” 

“ Not,” returned Bella, with quivering lips; “ not Har- 
mon? That’s not possible? ” 

“ Don’t tremble. Why not possible, deary, when so many 
things are possible?” demanded Mrs. Boffin, in a soothing 
tone. 

“ He was killed,” gasped Bella. 

“ Thought to be,” said Mrs. Boffin. But if ever John 
Harmon drew the breath of life on earth, that is certainly 
John Harmon’s arm round your waist now, my pretty. If 
ever John Harmon had a wife on earth, that wife is certainly 
you. If ever John Harmon and his wife had a child on 
earth, that child is certainly this.” 

By a master-stroke of secret arrangement, the inexhaustible 
baby here appeared at the door, suspended in mid-air by 
invisible agency. Mrs. Boffin plunging at it brought it to 
Bella’s lap, where both Mrs. and Mr. Boffin (as the saying is) 
“ took it out of” the Inexhaustible in a shower of caresses. 
It was only this timely appearance that kept Bella from 
swooning. This, and her husband’s earnestness in explain- 
ing further to her how it had come to pass that he had been 
supposed to be slain, and had even been suspected of his own 
murder; also, how he had put a pious fraud upon her which 
had preyed upon his mind, as the time for its disclosure 
approached, lest she might not make full allowance for the 
object with which it had originated, and in which it had 
fully developed. 

“But bless ye, my beauty!” cried Mrs. Boffin, taking 
him up short at this point, with another hearty clap of her 
hands. “ It wasn’t John only that was in it. We was all 
of us in it.” 

“ I don’t,” said Bella, looking vacantly from one to another, 
“ yet understand ” 

“ Of course you don’t, my deary,” exclaimed Mrs. Boffin. 


874 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ How can you till you’re told? So now I am a-going to 
tell you. So you put your two hands between my two hands 
again,” cried the comfortable creature, embracing her, 
“ with that blessed little picter lying on your lap, and you shall 
be told all the story. Now, Fm a-going to tell the story. Once, 
twice, three times, and the horses is off. Here they go! 
When I cries out that night, ‘ I know you now, you’re John! ’ 
— which was my exact words; wasn’t they, John?” 

“ Your exact words,” said John, laying his hand on hers. 

‘‘ That’s a very good arrangement,” cried Mrs. Boffin. 

Keep it there, John. And as we was all of us in it. Noddy, 
you come and lay yours atop of his, and we won’t break the 
pile till the story’s done.” 

Mr. Boffin hitched up a chair, and added his broad brown 
right hand to the heap. 

“That’s capital!” said Mrs. Boffin, giving it a kiss 
“ Seems quite a family building; don’t it? But the horses 
is off. Well! When I cries out that night, ‘ I know you 
now! you’re John!’ John catches of me, it is true; but 
I ain’t a light weight, bless ye, and he’s forced to let me 
down. Noddy, he hears a noise, and in he trots, and as soon 
as I anyways comes to myself I calls to him, ‘ Noddy, well 
I might say as I did say, that night at the Bower, for the 
Lord be thankful, this is John! ’ On which he gives a heave, 
and down he goes likewise, with his head under the writing- 
table. This brings me round comfortable, and that brings 
him round comfortable, and then John and him and me we 
all fall a-crying for joy.” 

“ Yes! They cry for joy, my darling,” her husband struck 
in. “ You understand ? These two, whom I come to life 
to disappoint and dispossess, cry for joy! ” 

Bella looked at him confusedly, and looked again at Mrs. 
Boffin’s radiant face. 

“ That’s right, my dear, don’t you mind him,” said Mrs. 
Bofffn; “ stick to me. Well! Then we sits down, gradually 
gets cool, and holds a confabulation. John he tells us how 
he is despairing in his mind on accounts of a certain fair 
young person, and how, if I hadn’t found him out, he was 
going away to seek his fortune far and wide, and had fully 
meant never to come to life, but to leave the property as our 


HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SCATTERED DUST 875 

wrongful inheritance for ever and a day. At which you 
never see a man so frightened as my Noddy was. For to 
think that he should have come in to the property wrongful, 
however innocent, and — more than that — might have gone 
on keeping it to his dying day, turned him whiter than chalk.” 

“ And you too,” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ Don’t you mind him, neither, my deary,” resumed Mrs. 
Boffin; ‘‘ stick to me. This brings up a certain confabula- 
tion regarding a certain fair young person ; when Noddy he 
gives it as his opinion that she is a deary creetur. ‘ She 
may be a leetle spoilt, and nat’ rally spoilt,’ he says, ‘ by 
circumstances, but that’s only on the surface, and I lay my 
life,’ he says, ‘ that she’s the true golden gold at heart.’ ” 

“ So did you,” said Mr. Boffin. 

“ Don’t you mind him a single morsel, my dear,” proceeded 
Mrs. Boffin, “ but stick to me. Then says John, Oh, if he 
could but prove so! Then we both of us ups and says, that 
minute, ‘ Prove so! ’ ” 

With a start, Bella directed a hurried glance towards Mr. 
Boffin. But he was sitting thoughtfully smiling at that 
broad brown hand of his, and either didn’t see it or would 
take no notice of it. 

“ ^ Prove it, John!’ we says,” repeated Mrs. Boffin. 

‘ Prove it and overcome your doubts with triumph, and be 
happy for the first time in your life, and for the rest of your 
life.’ This puts John in a state, to be sure. Then we says, 
‘ What will content you ? If she was to stand up for you 
when you was slighted, if she was to show herself of a generous 
mind when you was oppressed, if she was to be truest to 
you when you was poorest and friendliest, and all this against 
her own seeming interest, how would that do ? ’ ‘ Do ? ’ says 
John, ‘ it would raise me to the skies.’ ‘ Then,’ says my 
Noddy, ‘ make your preparations for the ascent, John, it 
being my firm belief that up you go! ’ ” 

Bella caught Mr. Boffin’s twinkling eye for half an instant; 
but he got it away from her, and restored it to his broad 
brown hand. 

“ From the first, you was always a special favourite of 
Noddy’s,” said Mrs. Boffin, shaking her head. “ Oh you 
were! And if I had been inclined to be jealous, I don’t know 


876 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


what I mightn’t have done to you. But as I wasn’t — why, 
my beauty,” with a hearty laugh and an embrace, “ I made 
you a special favourite of my own too. But the horses is 
coming round the comer. Well! Then says my Noddy, 
shaking his sides till he was fit to make ’em ache again : ‘ Look 
out for being slighted and oppressed, John, for if ever 
a man had a hard master, you shall find\ me from this 
present time to be such to you.’ And then he began! ” cried 
Mrs. Boffin, in an ecstasy of admiration. “ Lord bless 
you, then he began! And how he did begin; didn’t 
he!” 

Bella looked half frightened, and yet half laughed. 

“ But, bless you,” pursued Mrs. Boffin, “ if you could have 
seen him of a night, at that time of it! The way he’d sit 
and chuckle over himself! The way he’d say, ‘ I’ve been a 
regular brown bear to-day,’ and take himself in his arms and 
hug himself at the thoughts of the brute he had pretended. 
But every night he says to me: ‘ Better and better, old 
lady. What did we say of her? She’ll come through it, 
the true golden gold. This’ll be the happiest piece of work 
we ever done.’ And then he’d say, ‘ I’ll be a grislier old 
growler to-morrow!’ and laugh, he would, till John and 
me was often forced to slap his back, and bring it out of his 
windpipes with a little water.” 

Mr. Boffin, with his face bent over his heavy hand, made 
no sound, but rolled his shoulders when thus referred to, as 
if he were vastly enjoying himself. 

“ And so, my good and pretty,” pursued Mrs. Boffin, ‘‘ you 
was married, and there was we hid up in the church-organ by 
this husband of yours; for he wouldn’t let us out with it 
then, as was first meant. ^ No,’ he says, ^ she’s so unselfish 
and contented, that I can’t afford to be rich yet. I must 
wait a little longer.’ Then, when baby was expected, he says, 

‘ She is such a cheerful, glorious housewife, that I can’t afford 
to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer. Then, when 
baby was bom, he says, ‘ She is so much better than she ever 
was, that I can’t afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little 
longer.’ And so he goes on and on, till I says outright, 

‘ Now, John, if you don’t fix a time for setting her up in her 
own house and home, and letting us walk out of it, I’ll turn 


HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SCATTERED DUST 877 

Informer/ Then he says, he’ll only wait to triumph beyond 
what we ever thought possible, and to show her to us better 
than even we ever supposed; and he says, ‘ She shall see me 
under suspicion of having murdered myself, and you shall see 
how trusting and how true she’ll be.’ Well! Noddy and me 
agreed to that, and he was right, and here you are, and the 
horses is in, and the story is done, and God bless you, my 
beauty, and God bless us all! ” 

The pile of hands dispersed, and Bella and Mrs. BofBn took 
a good long hug of one another: to the apparent peril of the 
inexhaustible baby, lying staring in Bella’s lap. 

But is the story done ? ” said Bella, pondering. “ Is there 
no more of it? ” 

What more of it should there be, deary ? ” returned Mrs. 
Boffin, full of glee. 

“ Are you sure you have left nothing out of it ? ” asked 
Bella. 

I don’t think I have,” said Mrs. Boffin, archly. 

John dear,” said Bella, “ you’re a good nurse; will you 
please hold baby ? ” Having deposited the Inexhaustible in 
his arms with those words, Bella looked hard at Mr. Boffin, 
who had moved to a table where he was leaning his head 
upon his hand with his face turned away, and, quietly settling 
herself on her knees at his side, and drawing one arm over 
his shoulder, said: “ Please I beg your pardon, and I made 
a small mistake of a word when I took leave of you last. 
Please I think you are better (not worse) than Hopkins, better 
(not worse) than Dancer, better (not worse) than Blackberry 
Jones, better (not worse) than any of them! Please some- 
thing more ! ” cried Bella, with an exultant ringing laugh as 
she struggled with him and forced him to turn his delighted 
face to hers. “ Please I have found out something not yet 
mentioned. Please I don’t believe you are a hard-hearted 
miser at all, and please I don’t believe you ever for one single 
minute were I ” 

At this Mrs. Boffin fairly screamed with rapture, and sat 
beating her feet upon the floor, clapping her hands, and 
bobbing herself backwards and forwards, like a demented 
member of some Mandarin’s family. 

“ Oh, I understand you now, sir! ” cried Bella. “ I want 


878 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


neither you nor any one else to tell me the rest of the story. 
I can tell it to you, now, if you would like to hear it.’^ 

“ Can you, my dear? said Mr. Boffin. “ Tell it then.” 
“What?” cried Bella, holding him prisoner by the coat 
with both hands. “ When you saw what a greedy little wretch 
you were the patron of, you determined to show her how much 
misused and misprized riches could do, and often had done, 
to spoil people; did you? Not caring what she thought 
of you (and Goodness knows that was of no consequence!) 
you showed her, in yourself, the most detestable sides of 
wealth, saying in your own mind, ‘ This shallow creature 
would never work the truth out of her own weak soul, if she 
had a hundred years to do it in; but a glaring instance kept 
before her may open even her eyes and set her thinking.' 
That was what you said to yourself; was it, sir? ” 

“ I never said anything of the sort,” Mr. Boffin declared in 
a state of the highest enjoyment. 

“ Then you ought to have said it, sir,” returned Bella, 
giving him two pulls and one kiss, “ for you must have 
thought and meant it. You saw that good fortune was 
turning my stupid head and hardening my silly heart — was 
making megrasping, calculating, insolent, insufferable — and 
you took the pains to be the dearest and kindest finger-post 
that ever was set up anywhere, pointing out the road that I 
was taking and the end it led to. Confess instantly! ” 

“ John,” said Mr. Boffin, one broad piece of sunshine from 
head to foot, “ I wish you'd help me out of this.” 

“ You can’t be heard by counsel, sir,” returned Bella. 
“You must speak for yourself. Confess instantly ! ” 

“ Well, my dear,” said Mr. Boffin, “ the truth is, that when 
we did go in for the little scheme that my old lady has pinted 
out, I did put it to John, what did he think of going in for 
some such general scheme as you have pinted out? But I 
didn’t in any way so word it, because I didn’t in any way so 
mean it. I only said to John, wouldn’t it be more consistent, 
me going in for being a reg’lar brown bear respecting him, to 
go in as a reg’lar brown bear all round? ” 

“ Confess this minute, sir,” said Bella, “ that you did it to 
correct and amend me ! ” 

“ Certainly, my dear child,” said Mr. Boffin, “ I didn’t do 


HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SCATTERED DUST 879 

it to harm you; you may be sure of that. And I did hope 
it might just hint a caution. Still, it ought to be mentioned 
that no sooner had my old lady found out John, than John 
made known to her and me that he had had his eye upon a 
thankless person by the name of Silas Wegg. Partly for the 
punishment of which Wegg, by leading him on in a very un- 
handsome and underhanded game that he was playing, them 
books that you and me bought so many of together (and, 
by-the-bye, my dear, he wasn’t Blackberry Jones, but Blew- 
berry) was read aloud to me by that person of the name of 
Silas Wegg aforesaid.” 

Bella, who was still on her knees at Mr. Boffin’s feet, 
gradually sank down in a sitting posture on the ground, as 
she meditated more and more thoughtfully, with her eyes 
upon his beaming face. 

“ Still,” said Bella, after this meditative pause, there 
remain two things that I cannot understand. Mrs. Boffin 
never supposed any part of the change in Mr. Boffin to be 
real; did she? You never did; did you?” asked Bella, 
turning to her. 

“No!” returned Mrs. Boffin with a most rotund and 
glowing negative. 

“ And yet you took it very much to heart,” said Bella. 
“ I remember its making you very uneasy, indeed.” 

“ Ecod, you see Mrs. John has a sharp eye, John! ” cried 
Mr. Boffin, shaking his head with an admiring air. “ You’re 
right, my dear. The old lady nearly blowed us into shivers 
and smithers many times.” 

“ Why ? ” asked Bella. “ How did that happen when she 
was in your secret ? ” 

“ Why, it was a weakness in the old lady,” said Mr. Boffin: 
“ and yet, to tell you the whole truth and nothing but the 
truth, I’m rather proud of it. My dear, the old lady thinks 
so high of me that she couldn’t abear to see and hear me 
coming out as a regular brown one. Couldn’t abear to make- 
believe as I meant it! In consequence of which, we was 
everlastingly in danger with her.” 

Mrs. Boffin laughed heartily at herself; but a certain 
glistening in her honest eyes revealed that she was by no 
means cured of that dangerous propensity. 


880 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I assure you, my dear,” said Mr. Boffin, “ that on the 
celebrated day when I made what has since been agreed upon 
to be my grandest demonstration — I allude to Mew says 
the cat. Quack-quack says the duck, and Bow-wow-wow says 
the dog — I assure you, my dear, that on that celebrated 
day, them flinty and unbelieving words hit my old lady so 
hard on my account, that I had to hold her, to prevent her 
running out after you, and defending me by saying I was 
playing a part.’^ 

Mrs. Boffin laughed heartily again, and her eyes glistened 
again, and it then appeared, not only that in that burst 
of sarcastic eloquence Mr. Boffin was considered by his two 
fellow-conspirators to have outdone himself, but that in 
his own opinion it was a remarkable achievement. “ Never 
thought of it afore the moment, my dear!” he observed to 
Bella. “ When John said, if he had been so happy as to 
win your affections and possess your heart, it come into my 
head to turn round upon him with ‘ Win her affections and 
possess her heart! Mew says the cat. Quack-quack says the 
duck, and Bow-wow-wow says the dog.’ I couldn’t tell you 
how it come into my head or where from, but it had so 
much the sound of a rasper that I own to you it astonished 
myself. I was awful nigh bursting out a-laughing though, 
when it made John stare! ” 

“ You said, my pretty,” Mrs. Boffin reminded Bella, “ that 
there was one other thing you couldn’t understand.” 

“ Oh yes! ” cried Bella, covering her face with her hands; 
“ but that I never shall be able to understand as long as I 
live. It is, how John could love me so when I so little de- 
served it, and how you, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, could be so 
forgetful of yourselves, and take such pains and trouble to 
make me a little better, and after all to help him to so un- 
worthy a wife. But I am very, very grateful.” 

It was John Harmon’s turn then — John Harmon now for 
good, and John Rokesmith for nevermore — to plead with her 
(quite unnecessarily) in behalf of his deception, and to tell 
her, over and over again, that it had been prolonged by her 
own winning graces in her supposed station of life. This led 
on to many interchanges of endearment and enjoyment on all 
sides, in the midst of which the Inexhaustible being observed 





\ 


.1 


HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SCATTERED DUST 881 

staring in a most imbecile manner, on Mrs. Boffin’s breast, 
was pronounced to be supernaturally intelligent as to the 
whole transaction, and was made to declare to the ladies and 
gemplemorums, with a wave of the speckled fist (with diffi- 
culty detached from an exceedingly short waist), “ I have 
already informed my venerable Ma that I know all about 
it.” 

Then, said John Harmon, would Mrs. John Harmon come 
and see her house ? And a dainty house it was, and a taste- 
fully beautiful; and they went through it in procession; 
the Inexhaustible on Mrs. Boffin’s bosom (still staring) 
occupying the middle station, and Mr. Boffin bringing up 
the rear. And on Bella’s exquisite toilette table was an 
ivory casket, and in the casket were jewels the like of which 
she had never dreamed of, and aloft on an upper floor was a 
nursery garnished as with rainbows: “ though we were hard 
put to it,” said John Harmon, “ to get it done in so short 
a time.” 

The house inspected, emissaries removed the Inexhaustible, 
who was shortly afterwards heard screaming among the rain- 
bows; whereupon Bella withdrew herself from the presence 
and knowledge of gemplemorums, and the screaming ceased, 
and smiling Peace associated herself wJth that young olive 
branch. 

Come and look in. Noddy!” said Mrs. Boffin to Mr. 
Boffin. 

Mr. Boffin, submitting to be led on tiptoe to the nursery 
door, looked in wJth immense satisfaction, although there was 
nothing to see but Bella in a musing state of happiness, 
seated in a little low chair upon the hearth, with her child 
in her fair young arms, and her soft eyelashes shading her 
eyes from the fire. 

“ It looks as if the old man’s spirit had found rest at last; 
don’t it ? ” said Mrs.. Boffin. 

Yes, old lady.” 

“And as if his money had turned bright again, after a 
long, long rust in the dark, and was at last beginning to 
sparkle in the sunlight?” 

“ Yes, old lady.” 

“ And it makes a pretty and a promising picter; don’t it? ” 


882 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Yes, old lady.” 

But, aware at the instant of a fine opening for a point, 
Mr. Boffin quenched that observation in this — delivered in 
the grisliest growling of the regular brown bear. “ A pretty 
and a hopeful picter? Mew, Quack-quack, Bow-wow!” 
And then trotted silently down-stairs, with his shoulders in 
a state of the liveliest commotion. 


CHAPTER XIV 


CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE 

Mr. and Mrs. John Harmon had so timed their taking 
possession of their rightful name and their London house, 
that the event befell on the very day when the last waggon- 
load of the last Mound was driven out at the gates of Boffin’s 
Bower. As it jolted away, Mr. Wegg felt that the last load 
was correspondingly removed from his mind, and hailed the 
auspicious season when that black sheep. Boffin, was to be 
closely sheared. 

Over the whole slow process of levelling the Mounds, Silas 
had kept watch with rapacious eyes. But eyes no less rapa- 
cious had watched the growth of the Mounds in years bygone, 
and had vigilantly sifted the dust of which they were com- 
posed. No valuables turned up. How should there be any, 
seeing that the old hard jailer of Harmony Jail had coined 
every waif and stray into money long before ? 

Though disappointed by this bare result, Mr. Wegg felt 
too sensibly relieved by the close of the labour to grumble 
to any great extent. A foreman-representative of the dust 
contractors, purchasers of the Mounds, had worn Mr. Wegg 
down to skin and bone. This supervisor of the proceedings 
asserting his employers’ rights to cart off by daylight, night- 
light, torchlight, when they would, must have been the death 
of Silas if the work had lasted much longer. Seeming never to 
need sleep himself, he would reappear, with a tied-up broken 
head, in fantail hat and velveteen smalls, like an accursed 
goblin, at the most unholy and untimely hours. Tired out 
by keeping close ward over a long day’s work in fog and rain, 
Silas would have just crawled to bed and be dozing, when a 
horrid shake and rumble under his pillow would announce an 
approaching train of carts, escorted by this Demon of Unrest, 


884 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


to fall to work again. At another time, he would be rumbled 
up out of his soundest sleep, in the dead of the night; at 
another, would be kept at his post eight-and-forty hours on 
end. The more his persecutor besought him not to trouble 
himself to turn out, the more suspicious was the crafty Wegg 
that indications had been observed of something hidden some- 
where, and that attempts were on foot to circumvent him. 
So continually broken was his rest through these means, that 
he led the life of having wagered to keep ten thousand dog- 
watches in ten thousand hours, and looked piteously upon 
himself as always getting up and yet never going to bed. 
So gaunt and haggard had he grown at last, that his wooden 
leg showed disproportionate, and presented a thriving appear- 
ance in contrast with the rest of his plagued body, which 
might almost have been termed chubby. 

However, Wegg’s comfort was, that all his disagreeables 
were now over, and that he was immediately coming into his 
property. Of late the Grindstone did undoubtedly appear 
to have been whirling at his own nose rather than Boffin’s, 
but Boffin’s nose was now to be sharpened fine. Thus far, 
Mr. Wegg had let his dusty friend off lightly, having been 
baulked in that amiable design of frequently dining with 
him, by the machinations of the sleepless dustman. He had 
been constrained to depute Mr. Venus to keep their dusty 
friend. Boffin, under inspection, while he himself turned lank 
and lean at the Bower. 

To Mr. Venus’s museum Mr. Wegg repaired when at length 
the Mounds were down and gone. It being evening, he found 
that gentleman, as he expected, seated over his fire ; but did 
not find him, as he expected, floating his powerful mind in tea. 

‘‘Why, you smell rather comfortable here!” said Wegg, 
seeming to take it ill, and stopping and sniffing as he entered. 

“ I am rather comfortable, sir,” said Venus. 

“ You don’t use lemon in your business, do you? ” asked 
Wegg, sniffing again. 

“ No, Mr. Wegg,” said Venus. “ When I use it at all, I 
mostly use it in cobblers’ punch.” 

“What do you call cobblers’ punch?” demanded Wegg, 
in a worse humour than before. 

“ It’s difficult to impart the receipt for it, sir,” returned 


CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE 885 

Venus^ “ because, however particular you may be in allotting 
your materials, so much will still depend upon the individual 
gifts, and there being a feeling thrown into it. But the 
groundwork is gin.” 

“ In a Dutch bottle! ” said Wegg gloomily, as he sat him- 
self down. 

“Very good, sir, very good!” cried Venus. “Will you 
partake, sir?” 

“Will I partake?” returned Wegg very surlily. Why, 
of course I will! Will a man partake, as has been tormented 
out of his five senses by an everlasting dustman with his head 
tied up! Will he, too! As if he wouldn’t! ” 

“ Don’t let it put you out, Mr. Wegg. You don’t seem in 
} our usual spirits.” 

“ If you come to that, you don’t seem in your usual spirits,” 
growled Wegg. “ You seem to be setting up for lively.” 

This circumstance appeared, in his then state of mind, to 
give Mr. Wegg uncommon offence. 

“And you’ve been having your hair cut!” said Wegg, 
missing the usual dusty shock. 

“Yes, Mr. Wegg. But don’t let that put you out, 
either.” 

“And I am blest if you ain’t getting fat!” said Wegg, 
with culminating discontent. “ What are you going to do 
next ? ” 

“ Well, Mr. Wegg,” said Venus, smiling in a sprightly 
manner, “ I suspect you could hardly guess what I am going 
to do next.” 

“ I don’t want to guess,” retorted Wegg. “ All I’ve got 
to say is, that it’s well for y5u that the diwision of labour 
has been what it has been. It’s well for you to have had so 
light a part in this business, when mine has been so heavy. 
You haven’t had your rest broke. I’ll be bound.” 

“ Not at all, sir,” said Venus. “ Never rested so well in 
all my life, I thank you.” 

“ Ah! ” grumbled Wegg, “ you should have been me. If 
you had been me, and had been fretted out of your bed, and 
your sleep, and your meals, and your mind, for a stretch of 
months together, you'd have been out of condition and out 
of sorts.” 


886 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


** Certainly it has trained you down, Mr. Wegg,’^ said 
Venus, contemplating his figure with an artist’s eye. 
“ Trained you down very low, it has! So weazen and yellow 
is the kivering upon your bones, that one might almost fancy 
you had come to give a look-in upon the French gentleman 
in the corner, instead of me.” 

Mr. Wegg, glancing in great dudgeon towards the French 
gentleman’s corner, seemed to notice something new there, 
which induced him to glance at the opposite corner, and then 
to put on his glasses and stare at all the nooks and comers 
of the dim shop in succession. 

“ Why, you’ve been having the place cleaned up! ” he 
exclaimed. 

“ Yes, Mr. Wegg. By the hand of adorable woman.” 

“ Then what you’re going to do next, I suppose, is to get 
married ? ” 

“ That’s it, sir.” 

Silas took off his glasses again — finding himself too in- 
tensely disgusted by the sprightly appearance of his friend 
and partner to bear a magnified view of him, and made the 
inquiry: 

“ To the old party? ” 

Mr. Wegg! ” said Venus, with a sudden flush of wrath. 
** The lady in question is not a old party.” 

“ I meant,” explained Wegg, testily, “ to the party as 
formerly objected.” 

“ Mr. Wegg,” said Venus, “ in a case of so much delicacy, 
I must trouble you to say what you mean. There are strings 
that must not be played upon. No, sir! Not sounded, unless 
in the most respectful and tuneful manner. Of such melo- 
dious strings is Miss Pleasant Riderhood formed.” 

“ Then it is the lady as formerly objected ? ” said Wegg. 

Sir,” returned Venus with dignity, “ I accept the altered 
phrase. It is the lady as formerly objected.” 

“ When is it to come off ? ” asked Silas. 

“ Mr. Wegg,” said Venus, with another flush, “ I cannot 
permit it to be put in the form of a Fight. I must temperately 
but firmly call upon you, sir, to amend that question.” 

“ When is the lady,” Wegg reluctantly demanded, con- 
straining his ill-temper in remembrance of the partnership 


CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE 887 

and its stock-in-trade, “ a-going to give her ’and where she 
has already given her ’art?” 

“ Sir,” returned Venus, “ I again accept the altered phrase, 
and with pleasure. The lady is a-going to give her ’and 
where she has already given her ’art, next Monday.” 

“ Then the lady’s objection has been met? ” said Silas. 

“ Mr. Wegg,” said Venus, “ as I did name to you, I 
think, on a former occasion, if not on former occasions 

yy 

“ On former occasions,” interrupted Wegg. 

“ — What,” pursued Venus, “ what the nature of the lady’s 
objection was, I may impart, without violating any of the 
tender confidences since sprung up between the lady and 
myself, how it has been met, through the kind interference 
of two good friends of mine: one previously acquainted with 
the lady: and one, not. The pint was thrown out, sir, by 
those two friends, when they did me the great service of 
waiting on the lady to try if a union betwixt the lady and 
me could not be brought to bear — the pint, I say, was thrown 
out by them, sir, whether if, after marriage, I confined myself 
to the articulation of men, children, and the lower animals, 
it might not relieve the lady’s mind of her feeling respecting 
being — as a lady — regarded in a bony light. It was a happy 
thought, sir, and it took root.” 

It would seem, Mr. Venus,” observed Wegg, with a touch 
of distrust, “ that you are flush of friends? ” 

“ Pretty well, sir,” that gentleman answered, in a tone of 
placid mystery. “ So-so, sir. Pretty well.” 

“ However,” said Wegg, after eyeing him with another 
touch of distrust, “ I wish you joy. One man spends his 
fortune in one way, and another in another. You are going 
to try matrimony. I mean to try travelling.” 

“ Indeed, Mr. Wegg?” 

“ Change of air, sea-scenery, and my natural rest, I hope 
may bring me round after the persecutions I have undergone 
from the dustman with his head tied up, which I just now 
mentioned. The tough job being ended and the Mounds laid 
low, the hour is come for Boffin to stump up. Would ten 
to-morrow morning suit you, partner, for finally bringing 
Boffin’s nose to the grindstone ? ” 


888 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


Ten to-morrow morning would quite suit Mr. Venus for 
that excellent purpose. 

You have had him well under inspection, I hope? ” said 
Silas. 

Mr. Venus had had him under inspection pretty well every 
day. 

“ Suppose you w’as just to step round to-night then, and 
give him orders from me — I say from me, because he knows 
I won’t be played with — to be ready with his papers, his 
accounts, and his cash, at that time in the morning?” said 
Wegg. “ As a matter of form, which will be agreeable to 
your own feelings, before we go out (for I’ll walk with you 
part of the way, though my leg gives under me with weari- 
ness), let’s have a look at the stock-in-trade.” 

Mr. Venus produced it, and it was perfectly correct; Mr. 
Venus undertook to produce it again in the morning, and to 
keep tryst with Mr. Wegg on Boffin’s doorstep as the clock 
struck ten. At a certain point of the road between Clerken- 
well and Boffin’s house (Mr. Wegg expressly insisted that 
there should be no prefix to the Golden Dustman’s name) 
the partners separated for the night. 

It was a very bad night; to which succeeded a very bad 
morning. The streets were so unusually slushy, muddy, and 
miserable in the morning, that Wegg rode to the scene of 
action ; arguing that a man who was, as it were, going to the 
Bank to draw out a handsome property, could well afford 
that trifling expense. 

Venus was punctual, and Wegg undertook to knock at the 
door, and conduct the conference. Door knocked at. Door 
opened. 

“ Boffin at home? ” 

The servant replied that Mr. Boffin was at home. 

“ He’ll do,” said Wegg; though it ain’t what I call him.” 

The servant inquired if they had any appointment? 

“ Now, I tell you what, young fellow,” said Wegg, I 
won’t have it. This won’t do for me. I don’t want menials. 

I want Boffin.” 

They were shown into a waiting-room, where the all- 
powerful Wegg wore his hat, and whistled, and with his fore- 
% finger stirred up a clock that stood upon the chimneypiece, 


CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE 889 

until he made it strike. In a few minutes they were shown 
up-stairs into what used to be Boffin’s room; which, besides 
the door of entrance, had folding-doors in it, to make it one 
of a suite of rooms when occasion required. Here Boffin was 
seated at a library-table, and here Mr. Wegg, having im- 
periously motioned the servant to withdraw, drew up a chair 
and seated himself, in his hat, close beside him. Here, also, 
Mr. Wegg instantly underwent the remarkable experience of 
having his hat twitched off his head and thrown out of a 
window, which was opened and shut for the purpose. 

Be careful what insolent liberties you take in that gentle- 
man’s presence,” said the owner of the hand which had done 
this, ‘‘ or I will throw you after it.” 

Wegg involuntarily clapped his hand to his bare head, and 
stared at the Secretary. For it was he addressed him with 
a severe countenance, and who had come in quietly by the 
folding-doors. 

“ Oh! ” said Wegg, as soon as he recovered his suspended 
power of speech. “Very good! I gave directions for you 
to be dismissed. And you ain’t gone, ain’t you? Oh! We’ll 
look into this presently. Very good! ” 

“ No, nor I ain’t gone,” said another voice. 

Somebody else had come in quietly by the folding-doors. 
Turning his head, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the ever- 
wakeful dustman, accoutred with fantail hat and velveteen 
smalls complete. Who, untying his tied-up broken head, 
revealed a head that was whole, and a face that was Sloppy’s. 

“Ha, ha, ha, gentlemen!” roared Sloppy, in a peal of 
laughter, and with immeasurable relish. “ He never thought 
as I could sleep standing, and often done it when I turned 
for Mrs. Higden! He never thought as I used to give Mrs. 
Higden the Police-news in different voices! But I did lead 
him a life all through it, gentlemen, I hope I really and 
truly did! ” Here, Mr. Sloppy opening his mouth to a quite 
alarming extent, and throwing back his head to peal again, 
revealed incalculable buttons. 

“ Oh!” said Wegg, slightly discomfited, but not much as 
yet: “one and one is two not dismissed, is it? Bof — fin! 
Just let me ask a question. Who set this chap on, in this 
dress, when the carting began ? Who employed this fellow ? ” 


890 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ I say! ” remonstrated Sloppy, jerking his head forward. 
“ No fellows, or i’ll throw you out of winder! ” 

Mr. Boffin appeased him with a wave of his hand, and 
said: “ I employed him, Wegg.” 

“Oh! You employed him, Boffin? Very good. Mr. 
Venus, we raise our terms, and we can’t do better than 
proceed to business. Bof — fin! I want the room cleared of 
these two scum.” 

“ That’s not going to be done, Wegg,” replied Mr. Boffin, 
sitting composedly on the library-table, at one end, while 
the Secretary sat composedly on it at the other. 

“Bof — fin! Not going to be done?” repeated Wegg. 
“ Not at your peril ? ” 

“ No, Wegg,” said Mr. Boffin, shaking his head good- 
humouredly. “Not at my peril, and not on any other 
terms.” 

Wegg reflected a moment, and then said: “Mr. Venus, 
will you be so good as hand me over that same dockyment? ” 

“ Certainly, sir,” replied Venus, handing it to him with 
much politeness. “ There it is. Having now, sir, parted 
with it, I wish to make a small observation: not so much 
because it is anyways necessary, or expresses any new doctrine 
or discovery, as because it is a comfort to my mind. Silas 
Wegg, you are a precious old rascal.” 

Mr. Wegg, who, as if anticipating a compliment, had been 
beating time with the paper to the other’s politeness until 
this unexpected conclusion came upon him, stopped rather 
abruptly. 

“ Silas Wegg,” said Venus, “ know that I took the liberty 
of taking Mr. Boffin into our concern as a sleeping partner, 
at a very early period of our firm’s existence.” 

“ Quite true,” added Mr. Boffin; “ and I tested Venus by 
making him a pretended proposal or two; and I found him 
on the whole a very honest man, Wegg.” 

“ So Mr. Boffin, in his indulgence, is pleased to say,” 
Venus remarked: “ though in the beginning of this dirt, my 
hands were not, for a few hours, quite as clean as I could wish. 
But I hope I made early and full amends.” 

“ Venus, you did.” said Mr. Boffin. “ Certainly, certainly, 
certainly 


CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE 


891 


Venus inclined his head with respect and gratitude. 

Thank you, sir. I am much obliged to you, sir, for all. For 
your good opinion now, for your way of receiving and en- 
couraging me when I first put myself in communication with 
you, and for the influence since so kindly brought to bear upon 
a certain lady, both by yourself and by Mr. John Harmon.” 
To whom, when thus making mention of him, he also bowed. 

Wegg followed the name with sharp ears, and the action 
with sharp eyes, and a certain cringing air was infusing itself 
into his bullying air, when his attention was reclaimed by 
Venus. 

‘‘ Everything else between you and me, Mr. Wegg,” said 
Venus, “ now explains itself, and you can now make out, sir, 
without further words from me. But totally to prevent 
any unpleasantness or mistake that might arise on what I 
consider an important point, to be made quite clear at the 
close of our acquaintance, I beg the leave of Mr. Boffin and 
Mr. John Harmon to repeat an observation which I have 
already had the pleasure of bringing under your notice. You 
are a precious old rascal! ” 

“You are a fool,” said Wegg, with a snap of his fingers, 
“ and Fd have got rid of you before now, if I could have 
struck out any way of doing it. I have thought it over, I 
can tell you. You may go and welcome. You leave the 
more for me. Because, you know,” said Wegg, dividing his 
next observation between Mr. Boffin and Mr. Harmon, “ I 
am worth my price, and I mean to have it. This getting 
off is all very well in its way, and it tells with such an ana- 
tomical Pump as this one,” pointing out Mr. Venus, “ but 
it won’t do with a Man. I am here to be bought off, and I 
have named my figure. Now, buy me, or leave me.” 

“ I’ll leave you, Wegg,” said Mr. Boffin, laughing, “ as far 
as I am concerned.” 

“ Bof — fin!” replied Wegg, turning upon him with a 
severe air, “ I understand your new-born boldness. I see 
the brass underneath your silver plating. You have got your 
nose put out of joint. Knowing that you’ve nothing at 
stake, you can afford to come the independent game. Why, 
you’re just so much smeary glass to see through, you know! 
But Mr. Harmon is in another sitiwation. What Mr. Harmon 


892 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


risks is quite another pair of shoes. Now, I’ve heerd some- 
thing lately about this being Mr. Harmon — I make out now, 
some hints that I’ve met on that subject in the newspaper — 
and I drop you, Bof — fin, as beneath my notice. I ask 
Mr. Harmon whether he has any idea of the contents of this 
present paper ? ” 

“ It is a will of my late father’s, of more recent date than 
the will proved by Mr. Boffin (address whom again, as you 
have addressed him already, and I’ll knock you down), 
leaving the whole of his property to the Crown,” said John 
Harmon, with as much indifference as was compatible with 
extreme sternness. 

“Right you are!” cried Wegg. “Then,” screwing the 
weight of his body upon his wooden leg, and screwing his 
wooden head very much on one side, and screwing up one 
eye: “ then, I put the question to you, what’s this paper 
worth ? ” 

“ Nothing,” said John Harmon. 

Wegg had repeated the word with a sneer, and was entering 
on some sarcastic retort, when, to his boundless amazement, 
he found himself gripped by the cravat; shaken until his 
teeth chattered; shoved back, staggering, into a corner of 
the room; and pinned there. 

“You scoundrel!” said John Harmon, whose seafaring 
hold was like that of a vice. 

“ You’re knocking my head against the wall,” urged Silas 
faintly. 

“ I mean to knock your head against the wall,” returned 
John Harmon, suiting his action to his words, with the 
heartiest good-will; “ and I’d give a thousand pounds for 
leave to knock your brains out. Listen, you scoundrel, and 
look at that Dutch bottle.” 

Sloppy held it up for his edification. 

“ That Dutch bottle, scoundrel, contained the latest will of 
the many wills made by my unhappy self-tormenting father. 
That will gives everything absolutely to my noble bene- 
factor and yours, Mr. Boffin, excluding and reviling me, and 
my sister (then already dead of a broken heart), by name. 
That Dutch bottle was found by my noble benefactor and 
yours, after he entered on possession of the estate. That 


CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE 


893 


Dutch bottle distressed him beyond measure, because, though 
I and my sister were both no more, it cast a slur upon our 
memory which he knew we had done nothing in our miserable 
youth to deserve, "that Dutch bottle, therefore, he buried 
in the Mound belonging to him, and there it lay while you, 
you thankless wretch, were prodding and poking — often very 
near it, I dare say. His intention was, that it should never 
see the light; but he was afraid to destroy it, lest to destroy 
such a document, even with his great generous motive, might 
be an offence at law. After the discovery was made here who 
I was, Mr. Boffin, still restless on the subject, told me, upon 
certain conditions impossible for such a hound as you to 
appreciate, the secret of that Dutch bottle. I urged upon him 
the necessity of its being dug up and the paper being legally 
produced and established. The first thing you saw him do, 
and the second thing has been done without your know- 
ledge. Consequently, the paper now rattling in your hand as 
I shake you — and I should like to shake the life out of you 
— is worth less than the rotten cork of the Dutch bottle, do 
you understand ? ” 

Judging from the fallen countenance of Silas, as his head 
wagged backwards and forwards in a most uncomfortable 
manner, he did understand. 

Now, scoundrel,” said John Harmon, taking another 
sailor-like turn on his cravat and holding him in his corner 
at arm’s length, “ I shall make two more short speeches to 
you, because I hope they will torment you. Your discovery 
was a genuine discovery (such as it was), for nobody had 
thought of looking into that place. Neither did we know you 
had made it, until Venus spoke to Mr. Boffin, though I kept 
you under good observation from my first appearance here, 
and though Sloppy has long made it the chief occupation 
and delight of his life to attend you like your shadow. I 
tell you this, that you may know we knew enough of you to 
persuade Mr. Boffin to let us lead you on, deluded to the 
last possible moment, in order that your disappointment 
might be the heaviest possible disappointment. That’s the 
first short speech, do you understand ? ” 

Here John Harmon assisted his comprehension with 
another shake. 


894 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ Now, scoundrel,” he pursued, I am going to finish. 
You supposed me just now to be the possessor of my father’s 
property. — So I am. But through any act of my father’s 
or by any right I have? No. Through the munificence of 
Mr. Boffin. The conditions that he made with me, before 
parting with the secret of the Dutch bottle, were, that I 
should take the fortune, and that he should take his Mound 
and no more. I owe everything I possess solely to the dis- 
interestedness, uprightness, tenderness, goodness (there are 
no words to satisfy me) of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin. And when, 
knowing what I knew, I saw such a mud-worm as you pre- 
sume to rise in this house against this noble soul, the wonder 
is,” added John Harmon through his clenched teeth, and with 
a very ugly turn indeed on Wegg’s cravat, “ that I didn’t 
try to twist your head off, and fling that out of window! So. 
That’s the last short speech, do you understand ? ” 

Silas, released, put his hand to his throat, cleared it, and 
looked as if he had rather a large fishbone in that region. 
Simultaneously with this action on his part in his corner, a 
singular, and on the surface an incomprehensible, movement 
was made by Mr. Sloppy: who began backing towards Mr. 
Wegg along the wall, in the manner of a porter or heaver 
who is about to lift a sack of flour or coals. 

“ I am sorry, Wegg,” said Mr. Boffin, in his clemency, 
“ that my old lady and I can’t have a better opinion of you 
than the bad one we are forced to entertain. But I shouldn’t 
like to leave you, after all said and done, worse off in life 
than I found you. Therefore say in a word, before we part, 
what it’ll cost to set you up in another stall.” 

“ And in another place,” John Harmon struck in. “ You 
don’t come outside these windows.” 

“ Mr. Boffin,” returned Wegg in avaricious humiliation : 
‘‘ when I first had the honour of making your acquaintance, 
I had got together a collection of ballads which was, I may 
say, above price.” 

“ Then they can’t be paid for,” said John Harmon, “ and 
you had better not try, my dear sir.” 

“ Pardon me, Mr. Boffin,” resumed Wegg, with a malignant 
glance in the last speaker’s direction, “ I was putting the 
case to you, who, if my senses did not deceive me, put the 


CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE 


895 


case to me. I had a very choice collection of ballads, and 
there was a new stock of gingerbread in the tin box. I say 
no more, but would rather leave it to you.” 

“ But it’s difficult to name what’s right,” said Mr. Boffin 
uneasily, with his hand in his pocket, “ and I don’t want to 
go beyond what’s right, because you really have turned out 
such a very bad fellow. So artful, and so ungrateful you 
have been, Wegg; for when did I ever injure you ? ” 

“ There was also,” Mr. Wegg went on, in a meditative 
manner, “ a errand connection, in which I was much respected. 
But I would not wish to be deemed covetous, and I would 
rather leave it to you, Mr. Boffin.” 

Upon my word, I don’t know what to put it at,” the 
Golden Dustman muttered. 

‘‘ There was likewise,” resumed Wegg, “ a pair of trestles, 
for which alone a Irish person, who was deemed a judge of 
trestles, offered five and six — a sum I would not hear of, for 
I should have lost by it — and there was a stool, a umbrella, 
a clothes-horse, and a tray. But I leave it to you, Mr. Boffin.” 

The Golden Dustman seeming to be engaged in •some 
abstruse calculation, Mr. Wegg assisted him with the follow- 
ing additional items. 

“ There was, further, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt 
Jane, and Uncle Parker. Ah! When a man thinks of the 
loss of such, patronage as that; when a man finds so fair a 
garden rooted up by pigs; he finds it hard indeed, without 
going high, to work it into money. But I leave it wholly 
to you, sir.” 

Mr. Sloppy still continued his singular, and on the surface 
his incomprehensible, movement. 

“ Leading on has been mentioned,” said Wegg with a 
melancholy air, “ and it’s not easy to say how far the tone of 
my mind may have been lowered by unwholesome reading on 
the subject of Misers, when you was leading me and others 
on to think you one yourself, sir. All I can say is, that I 
felt my tone of mind a-lowering at the time. And how can 
a man put a price upon his mind I There was likewise a hat 
just now. But I leave the ole to you, Mr. Boffin.” 

” Come! ” said Mr. Boffin. “ Here’s a couple of pound.” 

In justice to myself, I couldn’t take it, sir.” 


896 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


The words were but out of his mouth when John Harmon 
lifted his finger, and Sloppy, who was now close to Wegg, 
backed to Wegg’s back, stooped, grasped his coat collar 
behind with both hands, and deftly swung him up like the 
sack of flour or coals before mentioned. A countenance of 
special discontent and amazement Mr. Wegg exhibited in 
this position, with his buttons almost as prominently on 
view as Sloppy’s own, and with his wooden leg in a highly 
unaccommodating state. But not for many seconds was 
his countenance visible in the room; for Sloppy lightly 
trotted out with him and trotted down the staircase, Mr. 
Venus attending to open the street door. Mr. Sloppy’s 
instructions had been to deposit his burden in the road; but 
a scavenger’s cart happening to stand unattended at the 
corner, with its little ladder planted against the wheel, 
Mr. S. found it impossible to resist the temptation of shoot- 
ing Mr. Silas Wegg into the cart’s contents. A somewhat 
difficult feat, achieved with great dexterity, and with a pro- 
digious splash. 


CHAPTER XV 


WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS THAT WERE SET 

How Bradley Headstone had been racked and riven in his 
mind since the quiet evening when by the river-side he had 
risen, as it were, out of the ashes of the Bargeman, none but 
he could have told. Not even he could have told, for such 
misery can only be felt. 

First, he had to bear the combined weight of the knowledge 
of what he had done, of that haunting reproach that he 
might have done it so much better, and of the dread of 
discovery. This was load enough to crush him, and he 
laboured under it day and night. It was as heavy on him 
in his scanty sleep, as in his red-eyed waking hours. It 
bore him down with a dread unchanging monotony, in which 
there was not a moment’s variety. The overweighted beast 
of burden, or the overweighted slave, can for certain instants 
shift the physical load, and find some slight respite even 
in enforcing additional pain upon such a set of muscles or 
such a limb. Not even that poor mockery of relief could 
the wretched man obtain, under the steady pressure of the 
infernal atmosphere into which he had entered 

Time went by, and no visible suspicion dogged him; time 
went by, and in such public accounts of the attack as were 
renewed at intervals, he began to see Mr. Lightwood (who 
acted as lawyer for the injured man) straying further from 
the fact, going wider of the issue, and evidently slackening 
in his zeal. By degrees, a glimmering of the cause of this 
began to break on Bradley’s sight. Then came the chance 
encounter with Mr. Milvey at the railway station (where he 
often lingered in his leisure hours, as a place where any fresh 
news of his deed would be circulated, or any placard refer- 


898 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


ring to it would be posted), and then he saw in the light 
what he had brought about. 

For then he saw that through his desperate attempt to 
separate those two for ever, he had been made the means of 
uniting them. That he had dipped his hands in blood, to 
mark himself a miserable fool and tool. That Eugene 
Wrayburn, for his wife’s sake, set him aside and left him to 
crawl along his blasted course. He thought of Fate, or 
Providence, or be the directing Power what it might, as 
having put a fraud upon him — overreached him — and in 
his impotent mad rage bit, and tore, and had his fit. 

New assurance of the truth came upon him in the next 
few following days, when it was put forth how the wounded 
man had been married on his bed, and to whom; and how, 
though always in a dangerous condition, he was a shade 
better. Bradley would far rather have been seized for his 
murder, than he would have read that passage, knowing 
himself spared, and knowing why. 

But, not to be still further defrauded and overreached — 
which he would be if implicated by Riderhood, and punished 
by the law for his abject failure as though it had been a 
success — he kept close in his school during the day, ven- 
tured out warily at night, and went no more to the railway 
station. He examined the advertisements in the newspapers 
for any sign that Riderhood acted on his hinted threat of so 
summoning him to renew their acquaintance, but found 
none. Having paid him handsomely for the support and 
accommodation he had had at the Lock-house, and knowing 
him to be a very ignorant man who could not write, he 
began to doubt whether he was to be feared at all, or whether 
they need ever meet again. 

All this time, his mind was never off the rack, and his 
raging sense of having been made to fling himself across the 
chasm which divided those two, and bridge it over for their 
coming together, never cooled down. This horrible con- 
dition brought on other fits. He could not have said how 
many, or when; but he saw in the faces of his pupils that 
they had seen him in that state, and that they were possessed 
by a dread of his relapsing. 

One winter day when a slight fall of snow was feathering 


WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS 


899 


the sills and frames of the school-room windows, he stood at 
his black board, crayon in hand, about to commence with a 
class; when, reading in the countenances of those boys that 
there was something wrong, and that they seemed in alarm 
for him, he turned his eyes to the door towards which they 
faced. He then saw a slouching man of forbidding appear- 
ance standing in the midst of the school, with a bundle under 
his arm; and saw that it was Riderhoocl. 

He sat down on a stool which one of the boys put for him, 
and he had a passing knowledge that he was in danger of 
falling, and that his face was becoming distorted. But the 
fit went off for that time, and he wiped his mouth, and stood 
up again. 

“ Beg your pardon, governor! By your leave! ’’ said Rider- 
hood, knuckling his forehead, with a chuckle and a leer. 

What place may this be?’’ 

“ This is a school.” 

“ Where young folks learns wot’s right? ” said Riderhood, 
gravely nodding. ‘‘ Beg your pardon, governor! By your 
leave! But who teaches this school ? ” 

‘‘ I do.” 

^‘You’re the master, are you, learned governor?” 

“Yes. I am the master.” 

“ And a lovely thing it must be,” said Riderhood, “ fur to 
learn young folks wot’s right, and fur to know wot they 
know wot you do it. Beg your pardon, learned governor! 
By your leave! — That there black board; wot’s it for? ” 

“ It is for drawing on, or writing on.” 

“ Is it though!” said Riderhood. “ Who’d have thought 
it, from the looks on it! Would you be so kind as write your 
name upon it, learned governor? ” (In a wheedling tone.) 

Bradley hesitated for a moment; but placed his usual 
signature, enlarged, upon the board. 

“ I ain’t a learned character myself,” said Riderhood, 
surveying the class, “ but I do admire learning in others. I 
should dearly like to hear these here young folks read that 
there name off, from the writing.” 

The arms of the class went up. At the miserable master’s 
nod, the shrill chorus arose: “ Bradley Headstone! ” 

“ No?” cried Riderhood. “You don’t mean it? Head- 


900 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


stone! Why, that’s in a churchyard. Hooroar for another 
turn! ” 

Another tossing of arms, another nod, and another shrill 
chorus: “ Bradley Headstone!” 

“ I’ve got it now!” said Riderhood, after attentively lis- 
tening, and internally repeating: “ Bradley. I see. Chris’en 
name, Bradley, sim’lar to Roger which is my own. Eh? 
Family name. Headstone, sim’lar to Riderhood which is my 
own. Eh?” 

Shrill chorus: “ Yes! ” 

“ Might you be acquainted, learned governor,” said Rider- 
hood, “ with a person of about your own heighth and breadth, 
and wot ’ud pull down in a scale about your own weight, 
answering to a name sounding summat like T’otherest ? ” 

With a desperation in him that made him perfectly quiet, 
though his jaw was heavily squared; wdth his eyes upon 
Riderhood; and with traces of quickened breathing in his 
nostrils, the schoolmaster replied, in a suppressed voice, after 
a pause: “ I think I know the man you mean.” 

“ I thought you knowed the man I mean, learned governor. 

I want the man.” 

With a half glance around him at his pupils, Bradley 
returned: ‘‘ Do you suppose he is here? ” 

‘‘ Begging your pardon, learned governor, and by your 
leave,” said Riderhood, with a laugh, “ how could I suppose 
he’s here, when there’s nobody here but you, and me, and 
these young lambs wot you’re a-leaming on? But he is 
most excellent company, that man, and I want him to come 
and see me at my Lock, up the river.” 

“ I’ll tell him so.” 

“ D’ye think he’ll come?” asked Riderhood. 

“ I am sure he will.” 

“ Having got your word for him,” said Riderhood, I shall 
count upon him. P’raps you’d so far obleege me, learned 
governor, as tell him that if he don’t come precious soon. I’ll 
look him up.” 

“ He shall know it.” 

“ Thankee. As I says a while ago,” pursued Riderhood, 
changing his hoarse tone and leering round upon the class 
again, “ though not a learned character my own self, I do 


WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS 901 

admire learning in others, to be sure! Being here and 
having met with your kind attention, Master, might I, afore 
I go, ask a question of these here young lambs of youm ? ” 

“ If it is in the way of school,” said Bradley, always sus- 
taining his dark look at the other, and speaking in his sup- 
pressed voice, you may.” 

“ Oh! It’s in the way of school! ” cried Riderhood. “ I’ll 
pound it. Master, to be in the way of school. Wot’s the 
diwisions of water, my lambs? Wot sorts of water is there 
on the land ? ” 

Shrill chorus: “Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds.” 

“Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds,” said Riderhood. “They’ve 
got all the lot, Master! Blowed if I shouldn’t have left out 
lakes, never having clapped eyes upon one to my knowledge. 
Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds. Wot is it, lambs, as they 
ketches in seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds ? ” 

Shrill chorus (with some contempt for the ease of the 
question): “Fish!” 

“ Good agin! ” said Riderhood. “ But what else is it, my 
lambs, as they sometimes ketches in rivers ? ” 

Chorus at a loss. One shrill voice: “ Weed! ” 

“Good agin!” cried Riderhood. “But it ain’t weed 
neither. You’ll never guess, my dears. Wot is it, besides 
fish, as they sometimes ketches in rivers? Well! I’ll tell 
you. It’s suits o’ clothes.” 

Bradley’s face changed. 

“ Leastways, lambs,” said Riderhood, observing him out 
of the corners of his eyes, “ that’s wot I my own self some- 
times ketches in rivers. For strike me blind, my lambs, if 
I didn’t ketch in a river the wery bundle under my arm!” 

The class looked at the master, as if appealing from the 
irregular entrapment of this mode of examination. The 
master looked at the examiner, as if he would have torn him 
to pieces. 

“ I ask your pardon, learned governor,” said Riderhood, 
smearing his sleeve across his mouth as he laughed with a 
relish, “ tain’t fair to the lambs, I know. It wos a bit of 
fun of mine. But upon my soul I drawed this here bundle 
out of a river. It’s a Bargeman’s suit of clothes. You see, 
it had been sunk there by the man as wore it, and I got it up.” 


902 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


“ How do you know it was sunk there by the man who 
wore it? ” asked Bradley. 

“ ’Cause I see him do it,” said Riderhood. 

They looked at each other. Bradley, slowly withdrawing 
his eyes, turned his face to the black board and slowly wiped 
his name out. 

“ A heap of thanks. Master,” said Riderhood, “ for bestow- 
ing so much of your time, and of the lambses’ time, upon a 
man as hasn’t got no other recommendation to you than 
being a honest man. Wishing to see at my Lock up the 
river, the person as we’ve spoke of, and as you’ve answered 
for, I takes my leave of the lambs and of their learned governor 
both.” 

With these words, he slouched out of the school, leaving 
the master to get through his w^eary work as he might, and 
leaving the whispering pupils to observe the master’s face 
until he fell into a fit which had been long impending. 

The next day but one was Saturday, and a holiday. Brad- 
ley rose early, and set out on foot for Plashwater Weir Mill 
Lock. He rose so early that it was not yet light w^hen he 
began his journey. Before extinguishing the candle by 
which he had dressed himself, he made a little parcel of his 
decent silver watch and its decent guard, and wrote inside 
the paper: “ Kindly take care of these for me.” He then 
addressed the parcel to Miss Beecher, and left it on the most 
protected corner of the little seat in her little porch. 

It was a cold hard easterly morning when he latched the 
garden gate and turned away. The light snowfall which 
had feathered his school-room windows on the Thursday 
still lingered in the air, and was falling white, while the wind 
blew black. The tardy day did not appear until he had 
been on foot two hours, and had traversed a great part 
of London from east to west. Such breakfast as he had, he 
took at the comfortless public-house where he had parted 
from Riderhood on the occasion of their night-walk. He took 
it standing at the littered bar, and looked loweringly at a 
man who stood where Riderhood had stood that early morning. 

He outwalked the short day, and was on the towing-path 
by the river, somewhat footsore, when the night closed 
in. Still two or three miles short of the Lock, he slackened 


WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS 


903 


his pace then, but went steadily on. The ground was now 
covered with snow, though thinly, and there were floating 
lumps of ice in the more exposed parts of the river, and 
broken sheets of ice under the shelter of the banks. He 
took heed of nothing but the ice, the snow, and the distance, 
until he saw a light ahead, which he knew gleamed from the 
Lock-house window. It arrested his steps, and he looked all 
around. The ice, and the snow, and he, and the one light, 
had absolute possession of the dreary scene. In the distance 
before him lay the place where he had struck the worse than 
useless blows that mocked him with Lizzie’s presence there 
as Eugene’s wife. In the distance behind him, lay the place 
where the children with pointing arms had seemed to devote 
him to the demons in crying out his name. Within there, 
where the light was, was the man who as to both distances 
could give him up to ruin. To these limits had his world 
shrunk. 

He mended his pace, keeping his eyes upon the light with 
a strange intensity, as if he were taking aim at it. When 
he approached it so nearly as that it parted into rays, they 
seemed to fasten themselves to him and draw him on. When 
he struck the door with his hand, his foot followed so quickly 
on his hand that he was in the room before he was bidden 
to enter. 

The light was the joint product of a fire and a candle. 
Between the two, with his feet on the iron fender, sat Rider- 
hood, pipe in mouth. 

He looked up with a surly nod when his visitor came in. 
His visitor looked down with a surly nod. His outer clothing 
removed, the visitor then took a seat on the opposite side of 
the fire. 

“ Not a smoker, I think ? ” said Riderhood, pushing a bottle 
to him across the table. 

‘‘ No.” 

They both lapsed into silence, with their eyes upon the 
fire. 

“You don’t need to be told I am here,” said Bradley at 
length. “ Who is to begin ? ” 

“ I’ll begin,” said Riderhood, “ when I’ve smoked this here 
pipe out.” 


904 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


He finished it with great deliberation, knocked out the 
ashes on the hob, and put it by. 

“ I’ll begin,” he then repeated, Bradley Headstone, 
Master, if you wish it.” 

” Wish it? I wish to know what you want with me.” 

“ And so you shall.” Riderhood had looked hard at his 
hands and his pockets, apparently as a precautionary measure 
lest he should have any w’eapon about him. But he now 
leaned forward, turning the collar of his waistcoat with an 
inquisitive finger, and asked, “ Why, where’s your watch ? ” 

“ I have left it behind.” 

‘‘ I want it. But it can be fetched. I’ve took a fancy to it.” 

Bradley answered with a contemptuous laugh. 

“ I want it,” repeated Riderhood, in a louder voice, and 
I mean to have it.” 

“ That is what you want of me, is it ? ” 

“ No,” said Riderhood, still louder; “ it’s on’y part of what 
I want of you. I want money of you.” 

“ Anything else ? ” 

“ Everythink else ! ” roared Riderhood, in a very loud and 
furious way. “ Answer me like that, and I won’t talk to 
you at all.” 

Bradley looked at him. 

“ Don’t so much as look at me like that, or I won’t talk 
to you at all,” vociferated Riderhood. “ But, instead of 
talking. I’ll bring my hand down upon you with all its weight,” 
heavily smiting the table with great force, “ and smash 
you!” 

“ Go on,” said Bradley, after moistening his lips. 

“ Oh! I’m a-going on. Don’t you fear but I’ll go on full 
fast enough for you, and fur enough for you, without your 
telling. Look here, Bradley Headstone, Master. You might 
have split the T’other governor to chips and wedges without 
my caring, except that I might have come upon you for a 
glass or so now and then. Else why have to do with you at 
all ? But when you copied my clothes, and when you copied 
my neckhankercher, and when you shook blood upon me 
after you had done the trick, you did wot I’ll be paid for and 
paid heavy for. If it come to be throw’d upon you, you 
was to be ready to throw it upon me, was you? Where 


WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS 905 

else but in Plashwater Mill Weir Lock was there a man 
dressed according as described? Where else but in Plash- 
water Weir Mill Lock was there a man as had had words 
with him coming through in his boat? Look at the Lock- 
keeper in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, in them same answer- 
ing clothes, and with that same answering red neckhanker- 
cher, and see whether his clothes happens to be bloody or not. 
Yes, they do happen to be bloody. Ah, you sly devil! ’’ 
Bradley, very white, sat looking at him in silence. 

“But two could play at your game,” said Riderhood, 
snapping his fingers at him half a dozen times, “ and I 
played it long ago; long afore you tried your clumsy hand 
at it; in days when you hadn’t begun croaking your lecters 
or what not in your school. I know to a figure how you 
done it. Where you stole away, I could steal away arter 
you, and do it knowinger than you. I know how you come 
away from London in your own clothes, and where you 
changed your clothes, and hid your clothes. I see you with 
my own eyes take your own clothes from their hiding-place 
among them felled trees, and take a dip in the river to account 
for your dressing yourself to any one as might come by. 
I see you rise up Bradley Headstone, Master, where you sat 
down Bargeman. I see you pitch your Bargeman’s bundle 
into the river. I hooked your Bargeman’s bundle out of the 
river. I’ve got your Bargeman’s clothes, tore this way and 
that way with the scuffle, stained green with the grass, and 
spattered all over with what bust from the blows. I’ve got 
them, and I’ve got you. I don’t care a curse for the T’other 
governor, alive or dead, but I care a many curses for my own 
self. And as you laid your plots agin me and was a sly devil 
agin me. I’ll be paid for it — I’ll be paid for it — I’ll be paid 
for it — till I’ve drained you dry! ” 

Bradley looked at the fire with a working face, and was 
silent for a while. At last he said, with what seemed an 
inconsistent composure of voice and feature: 

“ You can’t get blood out of a stone, Riderhood.” 

“ I can get money out of a schoolmaster though.” 

“ You can’t get out of me what is not in me. You can’t 
wrest from me what I have not got. Mine is but a poor 
calling. You have had more than two guineas from me. 


906 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


already. Do you know how long it has taken me (allowing 
for a long and arduous training) to earn such a sum ? ” 

“ I don’t know, nor I don’t care. Yours is a ’spectable 
calling. To save your ’spectability, it’s worth your while to 
pawn every article of clothes you’ve got, sell every stick in 
your house, and beg and borrow every penny you can get 
trusted with. When you’ve done that and handed over. I’ll 
leave you. Not afore.” 

“ How do you mean, you’ll leave me ? ” 

“ I mean as I’ll keep you company, wherever you go, when 
you go away from here. Let the Lock take care of itself. 
I’ll take care of you, once I’ve got you.” 

Bradley again looked at the fire. Eyeing him aside, 
Riderhood took up his pipe, refilled it, lighted it, and sat 
smoking. Bradley leaned his elbows on his knees, and his 
head upon his hands, and looked at the fire with a most 
intent abstraction. 

“ Riderhood,” he said, raising himself in his chair, after a 
long silence, and drawing out his purse and putting it on 
the table. “ Say I part with this, which is all the money I 
have; say I let you have my watch; say that every quarter, 
when I draw my salary, I pay you a certain portion of it.” 

“ Say nothink of the sort,” retorted Riderhood, shaking 
his head as he smoked. “ You’ve got away once, and I 
won’t run the chance agin. I’ve had trouble enough to find 
you, and shouldn’t have found you if I hadn’t seen you 
slipping along the street over-night, and watched you till 
you was safe housed. I’ll have one settlement with you for 
good and all.” 

“ Riderhood, I am a man who has lived a retired life. I 
have no resources beyond myself. I have absolutely no 
friends.” 

” That’s a lie,” said Riderhood. “ You’ve got one friend as 
I knows of; one as is good for a Savings-Bank book, or I’m 
a blue monkey ! ” 

Bradley’s face darkened, and his hand slowly closed on the 
purse and drew it back, as he sat listening for what the 
other should go on to say. 

“ I went into the wrong shop, fust, last Thursday,” said 
Riderhood. “ Found myself among the young ladies, by 


WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS 907 

George! Over the young ladies, I see a Missis. That Missis 
is sweet enough upon you, Master, to sell herself up, slap, 
to get you out of trouble. Make her do it then.” 

Bradley stared at him so very suddenly that Riderhood, not 
quite knowing how to take it, affected to be occupied with 
the encircling smoke from his pipe; fanning it away with 
his hand, and blowing it off. 

“ You spoke to the mistress, did you? ” inquired Bradley, 
with that former composure of voice and feature that seemed 
inconsistent, and with averted eyes. 

“ Poof! Yes,” said Riderhood, withdrawing his attention 
from the smoke. “ I spoke to her. I didn’t say much to 
her. She was put in a fluster by my dropping in among the 
young ladies (I never did set up for a lady’s man), and she 
took me into her parlour to hope as there was nothink wrong. 
I tells her, ‘ Oh no, nothink wrong. The master’s my wery 
good friend.’ But I see how the land laid, and that she was 
comfortable off.” 

Bradley put the purse in his pocket, grasped his left wrist 
with his right hand, and sat rigidly contemplating the Are. 

“ She couldn’t live more handy to you than she does,” said 
Riderhood, “ and when I goes home with you (as of course I 
am a-going), I recommend you to clean her out without loss 
of time. You can marry her, arter you and me have come 
to a settlement. She’s nice-looking, and I know you can’t be 
keeping company with no one else, having been so lately 
disapinted in another quarter.” 

Not one other word did Bradley utter all that night. Not 
once did he change his attitude, or loosen his hold upon his 
wrist. Rigid before the fire, as if it were a charmed flame 
that was turning him old, he sat, with the dark lines deepen- 
ing in his face, its stare becoming more and more haggard, its 
surface turning whiter and whiter as if it were being over- 
spread with ashes, and the very texture and colour of his 
hair degenerating. 

Not until the late daylight made the window transparent 
did this decaying statue move. Then it slowly arose, and 
sat in the window looking out. 

Riderhood had kept his chair all night. In the earlier 
part of the night he had muttered twice or thrice that it was 


908 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


bitter cold; or that the fire burnt fast, when he got up to 
mend it; but, as he could elicit from his companion neither 
sound nor movement, he had afterwards held his peace. He 
was making some disorderly preparations for coffee, when 
Bradley came from the window and put on his outer coat 
and hat. 

Hadn’t us better have a bit o’ breakfast afore we start? ” 
said Riderhood. “ It ain’t good to freeze a empty stomach, 
Master.” 

Without a sign to show that he heard, Bradley walked 
out of the Lock-house. Catching up from the table a piece 
of bread, and taking his Bargeman’s bundle under his arm, 
Riderhood immediately followed him. Bradley turned to- 
wards London. Riderhood caught him up, and walked at 
his side. 

The two men trudged, on, side by side, in silence, full three 
miles. Suddenly, Bradley turned to retrace his course. 
Instantly, Riderhood turned likewise, and they went back 
side by side. 

Bradley reentered the Lock-house. So did Riderhood. 
Bradley sat down in the window. Riderhood warmed him- 
self at the fire. After an hour or more, Bradley abruptly 
got up again, and again went out, but this time turned the 
other way. Riderhood was close after him, caught him up 
in a few paces, and walked at his side. 

This time, as before, when he found his attendant not to 
be shaken off, Bradley suddenly turned back. This time, as 
before, Riderhood turned back along with him. But not 
this time, as before, did they go into the Lock-house, for 
Bradley came to a stand on the snow-covered turf by the 
Lock, looking up the river and down the river. Navigation 
was impeded by the frost, and the scene was a mere white 
and yellow desert. 

“ Come, come. Master,” urged Riderhood, at his side 
“This is a dry game. And where’s the good of it? You 
can’t get rid of me, except by coming to a settlement. I 
am a-going along with you wherever you go.” 

Without a word of reply, Bradley passed quickly from 
him over the wooden bridge on the Lock gates. “ Why, 
there’s even less sense in this move than t’other,” said Rider- 







4 


I 


4 


I 



WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS 909 

hood, following. “ The Weir’s there, and you’ll have to come 
back, you know.” 

Without taking the least notice, Bradley leaned his body 
against a post, in a resting attitude, and there rested with 
his eyes cast down. “ Being brought here,” said lliderhood, 
gruffly, “ I’ll turn it to some use by changing my gates.” 
With a rattle and a rush of water, he then swung- to the Lock 
gates that were standing open, before opening the others. 
So both sets of gates were, for the moment, closed. 

“You’d better by far be reasonable, Bradley Headstone, 
Master,” said Riderhood, passing him, “ or I’ll drain you all 
the drier for it, when we do settle. — Ah! Would you ? ” 
Bradley had caught him round the body. He seemed to 
be girdled with an iron ring. They were on the brink of the 
Lock, about midway between the two sets of gates. 

“ Let go! ” said lliderhood, “ or I’ll get my knife out and 
slash you wherever I can cut you. Let go! ” 

Bradley was drawing to the Lock-edge. Riderhood was 
drawing away from it. It was a strong grapple, and a fierce 
struggle, arm and leg. Bradley got him round, with his 
back to the Lock, and still worked him backward. 

“Let go!” said Riderhood. “Stop! What are you 
trying at? You can’t drown Me. Ain’t I told you that the 
man as has come through drowning can never be drowned ? 

I can’t be drowned.” 

“I can be!” returned Bradley, in a desperate, clenched 
voice. “ I am resolved to be. I’ll hold you living, and I’ll 
hold you dead. Come down! ” 

Riderhood went over into the smooth pit backward, and 
Bradley Headstone upon him. When the two were found, 
lying under the ooze and scum behind one of the rotting 
gates, Riderhood’ s hold had relaxed, probably in falling, and 
his eyes were staring upward. But he was girdled still with 
Bradley’s iron ring, and the rivets of the iron ring held tight. 


CHAPTER XVI 


PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL 

Mr. and Mrs. John Harmon’s first delightful occupation 
was to set all matters right that had strayed in any way 
wrong, or that might, could, would, or should have strayed 
in any way wrong, while their name was in abeyance. In 
tracing out affairs for which John’s fictitious death was to be 
considered in any way responsible, they used a very broad and 
free construction; regarding, for instance, the dolls’ dress- 
maker as having a claim on their protection, because of her 
association with Mrs. Eugene Wrayburn, and because of 
Mrs. Eugene’s old association, in her turn, with the dark 
side of the story. It followed that the old man, Riah, as 
a good and serviceable friend to both, was not to be dis- 
claimed. Nor even Mr. Inspector, as having been trepanned 
into an industrious hunt on a false scent. It may be re- 
marked, in connection with that worthy officer, that a rumour 
shortly afterwards pervaded the Force, to the effect that he 
had confided to Miss Abbey Potterson, over a jug of mellow 
flip in the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, that he 
“ didn’t stand to lose a farthing ” through Mr. Harmon’s 
coming to life, but was quite as well satisfied as if that gentle- 
man had been barbarously murdered, and he (Mr. Inspector) 
had pocketed the government reward. 

In all their arrangements of such nature, Mr. and Mrs. 
John Harmon derived much assistance from their eminent 
solicitor, Mr. Mortimer Lightwood; who laid about him 
professionally with such unwonted dispatch and intention, 
that a piece of work was vigorously pursued as soon as cut 
out; whereby Young Blight was acted on as by that trans- 
atlantic dram which is poetically named An Eye-Opener, 
and found himself staring at real clients instead of out of 


PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL 


911 


window. The accessibility of Riah proving very useful as 
to a few hints towards the disentanglement of Eugene’s 
affairs, Lightwood applied himself with infinite zest to 
attacking and harassing Mr. Fledgeby; who, discovering 
himself in danger of being blown into the air by certain 
explosive transactions in which he had been engaged, and 
having been sufficiently flayed under his beating, came to 
a parley and asked for quarter. The harmless Twemlow 
profited by the conditions entered into, though he little 
thought it. Mr. Riah unaccountably melted; waited in 
person on him over the stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint 
James’s, no longer ravening but mild, to inform him that 
payment of interest as heretofore, but henceforth at Mr. 
Lightwood’s offices, would appease his Jewish rancour; and 
departed with the secret that Mr. John Harmon had ad- 
vanced the money and become the creditor. Thus was the 
sublime Snigsworth’s wrath averted, and thus did he snort no 
larger an amount of moral grandeur at the Corinthian column 
in the print over the fireplace than was normally in his (and 
the British) constitution. 

Mrs. Wilfer’s first visit to the Mendicant’s bride, at the new 
abode of Mendicancy, was a grand event. Pa had been sent 
for into the City, on the very day of taking possession, and 
had been stunned with astonishment, and brought to, and led 
about the house by one ear, to behold its various treasures, 
and had been enraptured and enchanted. Pa had also been 
appointed Secretary, and had been enjoined to give instant 
notice of resignation to Chicksey, Veneering, and S lobbies, 
for ever and ever. But Ma came later, and came, as was 
her due, in state. 

The carriage was sent for Ma, who entered it with a 
bearing worthy of the occasion, accompanied, rather than 
supported, by Miss Lavinia, who altogether declined to 
recognise the maternal majesty. Mr. George Sampson meekly 
followed. He was received in the vehicle by Mrs. Wilfer, 
as if admitted to the honour of assisting at a funeral in the 
family, and she then issued the order, ‘‘Onward!” to the 
Mendicant’s menial. 

“ I wish to goodness, Ma,” said Lavvy, throwing herself 


912 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


back among the cushions, with her arms crossed, ** that you’d 
loll a little.” 

How! ” repeated Mrs. Wilfer. Loll! ’* 

^‘Yes, Ma.” 

“ I hope,” said the impressive lady, I am incapable of 
it.” 

“ I am sure you look so, Ma. But why one should go out 
to dine with one’s own daughter or sister, as if one’s under- 
petticoat was a backboard, I do not understand.” 

“Neither do I understand,” retorted Mrs. Wilfer, with 
deep scorn, “ how a young lady can mention the garment in 
the name in which you have indulged. I blush for you.” 

“ Thank you, Ma,” said Lavvy, yawning, “ but I can do 
it for myself, I am obliged to you, when there’s any occasion.” 

Here, Mr. Sampson, with the view of establishing harmony, 
which he never under any circumstances succeeded in doing, 
said with an agreeable smile: “ After all, you know, ma’am, 
we know it’s there.” And immediately felt that he had 
committed himself. 

“ We know it’s there! ” said Mrs. Wilfer, glaring. 

“ Really, George,” remonstrated MissLavinia, “ I must say 
that I don’t understand your allusions, and that I think you 
might be more delicate and less personal.” 

“ Go it!” cried Mr. Sampson, becoming, on the shortest 
notice, a prey to despair. “ Oh yes! Go it, Miss Lavinia 
Wilfer! ” 

“ What you may mean, George Sampson, by your omnibus- 
driving expressions, I cannot pretend to imagine. Neither,” 
said Miss Lavinia, “ Mr. George Sampson, do I wish to 
imagine. It is enough for me to know in my own heart 
that I am not going to — ” having imprudently got into 
a sentence without providing a way out of it. Miss Lavinia 
was constrained to close with “ going to go it.” A weak 
conclusion which, however, derived some appearance of 
strength from disdain. 

“ Oh yes! ” cried Mr. Sampson, with bitterness. “ Thus 
it ever is. I never ” 

“ If you mean to say,” Miss Lavvy cut him short, “ that 
you never brought up a young gazelle, you may save your- 
self the trouble, because nobody in this carriage supposes 


I 


PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL 


913 


that you ever did. We know you better.” (As if this were 
a home-thrust.) 

“ Lavinia,” returned Mr. Sampson, in a dismal vein, “ I 
did not mean to say so. What I did mean to say was, that 
I never expected to retain my favoured place in this family 
after Fortune shed her beams upon it. Why do you take 
me,” said Mr. Sampson, “ to the glittering halls with which 
I can never compete, and then taunt me with my moderate 
salary ? Is it generous ? Is it kind ? ” 

The stately lady, Mrs. Wilfer, perceiving her opportunity 
of delivering a few remarks from the throne, here took up 
the altercation. 

Mr. Sampson,” she began, “ I cannot permit you to mis- 
represent the intentions of a child of mine.” 

“ Let him alone, Ma,” Miss Lavvy interposed with haughti- 
ness. “ It is indifferent to me what he says or does.” 

“ Nay, Lavinia,” quoth Mrs. Wilfer, “ this touches the 
blood of the family. If Mr. George Sampson attributes, 
even to my youngest daughter ” 

(“ I don’t see why you should use the word ‘ even,’ Ma,” 
Miss Lavvy interposed, “ because I am quite as important as 
any of the others.”) 

“ Peace! ” said Mrs. Wilfer, solemnly. “ I repeat, if Mr. 
George Sampson attributes, to my youngest daughter, grovel- 
ling motives, he attributes them equally to the mother of 
my. youngest daughter. That mother repudiates them, and 
demands of Mr. George Sampson, as a youth of honour, what 
he would have ? I may be mistaken — nothing is more likely 
— but Mr. George Sampson,” proceeded Mrs. Wilfer, majes- 
tically waving her gloves, appears to me to be seated in a 
first-class equipage. Mr. George Sampson appears to me to 
be on his way, by his own admission, to a residence that 
may be termed Palatial. Mr. George Sampson appears to 
me to be invited to participate in the — shall I say the — 
Elevation which has descended on the family with which he 
is ambitious, shall I say, to Mingle ? Whence, then, this tone 
on Mr. Sampson’s part ? ” 

It is only, ma’am,” Mr. Sampson explained, in exceed- 
ingly low spirits, “ because, in a pecuniary sense, I am pain- 
fully conscipus of my unworthiness. Lavinia is now highly 


914 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


connected. Can I hope that she will still remain the same 
Lavinia as of old? And is it not pardonable if I feel sen- 
sitive, when I see a disposition on her part to take me up 
short?” 

“ If you are not satisfied with your position, sir,” observed 
Miss Lavinia, with much politeness, “ we can set you down 
at any turning you may please to indicate to my sister’s 
coachman,” 

“ Dearest Lavinia,” urged Mr. Sampson, pathetically, “ I 
adore you.” 

“ Then if you can’t do it in a more agreeable manner,” 
returned the young lady, “ I wish you wouldn’t.” 

“ I also,” pursued Mr. Sampson, “ respect you, ma’am, to 
an extent which must ever be below your merits, I am well 
aware, but still up to an uncommon mark. Bear with -a 
wretch, Lavinia, bear with a wretch, ma’am, who feels the 
noble sacrifices you make for him, but is goaded almost to 
madness ” — Mr. Sampson slapped his forehead — “ when 
he thinks of competing with the rich and influential.” 

“ When you have to compete with the rich and influential, 
it will probably be mentioned to you,” said Miss Lavvy, “ in 
good time. At least, it will if the case is my case.” 

Mr. Sampson immediately expressed his fervent opinion 
that this was more than human,” and was brought upon 
his knees at Miss Lavinia’s feet. 

It was the crowning addition, indispensable to the full en- 
joyment of both mother and daughter, to bear Mr. Sampson, 
a grateful captive, into the glittering halls he had mentioned, 
and to parade him through the same, at once a living witness 
of their glory, and a bright instance of their condescension. 
Ascending the staircase. Miss Lavinia permitted him to 
walk at her side, with the air of saying: “ Notwithstanding 
all these surroundings, I am yours as yet, George. How 
long it may last is another question, but I am yours as yet.” 
She also benignantly intimated to him, aloud, the nature of 
the objects upon which he looked, and to which, he was 
unaccustomed: as, “ Exotics, George,” “ An aviary, George,” 
“An ormolu clock, George,” and the like. While through 
the whole of the decorations, Mrs. Wilfer led the way with 
the bearing of a Savage Chief, who would feel himself com- 


PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL 915 

promised by manifesting the slightest token of surprise or 
admiration. 

Indeed, the bearing of this impressive woman, throughout 
the day, was a pattern to all impressive women under similar 
circumstances. She renewed the acquaintance of Mr. and 
Mrs., Boffin, as if Mr. and Mrs. Boffin had said of her what 
she had said of them, and as if Time alone could quite wear 
her injury out. She regarded every servant who approached 
her as her sworn enemy, expressly intending to offer her 
affronts with the dishes, and to pour forth outrages on her 
moral feelings from the decanters. She sat erect at table, 
on the right hand of her son-in-law, as half suspecting poison 
in the viands, and as bearing up with native force of character 
against other deadly ambushes. Her carriage towards Bella 
was as a carriage towards a young lady of good position whom 
she had met in society a few years ago. Even when, slightly 
thawing under the influence of sparkling champagne, she 
related to her son-in-law some passages of domestic interest 
concerning her papa, she infused into the narrative such 
Arctic suggestions of her having been an unappreciated bless- 
ing to mankind, since her papa’s days, and also of that 
gentleman’s having been a frosty impersonation of a frosty 
race, as struck cold to the very soles of the feet of the hearers. 
The Inexhaustible being produced, staring, and evidently 
intending a weak and washy smile shortly, no sooner beheld 
her, than it was stricken spasmodic and inconsolable. When 
she took her leave at last, it would have been hard to say 
whether it was with the air of going to the scaffold herself, 
or of leaving the inmates of the house for immediate execution. 
Yet John Harmon enjoyed it all merrily, and told his wife, 
when he and she were alone, that her natural ways had never 
seemed so dearly natural as beside this foil, and that although 
he did not dispute her being her father’s daughter, he should 
ever remain steadfast in the faith that she could not be her 
mother’s. 

This visit was, as has been said, a great event. Another 
event, not grand, but deemed in the house a special one, 
occurred at about the same period; and this was the first 
interview between Mr. Sloppy and Miss Wren. 


916 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


The dolls’ dressmaker, being at work for the Inexhaustible 
upon a full-dressed doll some two sizes larger than that 
young person, Mr. Sloppy undertook to call for it, and did so. 

“ Come in, sir,” said Miss Wren, w^ho was working at her 
bench. ” And who may you be? ” 

Mr. Sloppy introduced himself by name and buttons.. 

” Oh indeed!” cried Jenny. “ Ah! I have been looking 
forward to knowing you. I heard of your distinguishing 
yourself.” 

“ Did you. Miss?” grinned Sloppy. “ I am sure I am 
glad to hear it, but I don’t know how.” 

“ Pitching somebody into a mud-cart,” said Miss Wren. 

“Oh! That way!” cried Sloppy. “Yes, Miss.” And 
threw back his head and laughed. 

“ Bless us! ” exclaimed Miss Wren, with a start. “ Don’t 
open your mouth as wide as that, young man, or it’ll catch 
so, and not shut again some day.” 

Mr. Sloppy opened it, if possible, wider, and kept it open 
until his laugh was out. 

“ Why, you’re like the giant,” said Miss Wren, “ when he 
came home in the land of Beanstalk, and wanted Jack for 
supper.” 

“Was he good-looking. Miss?” asked Sloppy. 

“ No,” said Miss Wren. “ Ugly.” 

Her visitor glanced round the room — which had many 
comforts in it now, that had not been in it before — and said: 
“ This is a pretty place. Miss.” 

“ Glad you think so, sir,” returned Miss Wren. “ And 
what do you think of Me ? ” 

The honesty of Mr. Sloppy being severely taxed by the 
question, he twisted a button, grinned, and faltered. 

“Out wdth it!” said Miss Wren, with an arch look. 

“ Don’t you think me a queer little comicality? ” In shak- 
ing her head at him, after asking the question, she shook 
her hair down. 

“ Oh!” cried Sloppy, in a burst of admiration. “ What 
a lot, and what a colour! ” 

Miss Wren, wdth her usual expressive hitch, went on with 
her work. But left her hair as it w^as; not displeased by 
the effect it had made. 


PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL 


917 


“ You don’t live here alone; do you, Miss ? ” asked Sloppy. 

“ No,” said Miss Wren, with a chop. Live here with 
my fairy godmother.” 

“With;” Mr. Sloppy couldn’t make it out; “with who 
did you say. Miss ? ” 

“ Well! ” replied Miss Wren, more seriously. “ With my 
second father. Or with my first, for that matter.” And 
she shook her head, and drew a sigh. “ If you had known a 
poor child I used to have here,” she added, “ you’d have 
understood me. But you didn’t, and you can’t. All the bet- 
ter! ” 

“ You must have been taught a long time,” said Sloppy, 
glancing at the array of dolls in hand, “ before you came to 
work so neatly. Miss, and with such a pretty taste.” 

“Never was taught a stitch, young man!” returned the 
dressmaker, tossing her head. “ Just gobbled and gobbled, 
till I found out how to do it. Badly enough at first, but 
better now.” 

“ And here have I,” said Sloppy, in something of a self- 
reproachful tone, “ been a-learning and a-learning, and here 
has Mr. Boffin been a-paying and a-paying, ever so 
long! ” 

“ I have heard what your trade is,” observed Miss Wren; 
“ it’s cabinet-making.” 

Mr. Sloppy nodded. “ Now that the Mounds is done 
with, it is. I’ll tell you what. Miss. I should like to make 
you something.” 

“Much obliged. But what?” 

“ I could mafe you,” said Sloppy, surveying the room, “ I 
could make you a handy set of nests to lay the dolls in. Or 
I could make you a handy little set of drawers, to keep your 
silks and threads and scraps in. Or I could turn you a rare 
handle for that crutch-stick, if it belongs to him you call your 
father.” 

“ It belongs to me,” returned the little creature, with a 
quick flush of her face and neck. “ I am lame.” 

Poor Sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive 
delicacy behind his buttons, and his own hand had struck it. 
He said, perhaps, the best thing in the way of amends that 
could be said. “lam very glad it’s yours, because I’d rather 


918 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


ornament it for you than for any one else. Please may I 
look at it? ” 

Miss Wren was in the act of handing it to him over her 
bench, when she paused. “ But you had better see me use 
it,” she said, sharply. “ This is the way. Hoppetty, Kick- 
etty. Peg-peg-peg. Not pretty; is it? ” 

“ It seems to me that you hardly want it at all,” said 
Sloppy. 

The little dressmaker sat down again, and gave it into 
his hand, saying, with that better look upon her, and with 
a smile: “Thank you!” 

“ And as concerning the nests and drawers,” said Sloppy, 
after measuring the handle on his sleeve, and softly standing 
the stick aside against the wall, “ why, it would be a real 
pleasure to me. I’ve heerd tell that you can sing most beauti- 
ful; and I should be better paid with a song than with any 
money, for I always loved the likes of that, and often giv’ 
Mrs. Higden and Johnny a comic song myself, w ith ‘ Spoken ’ 
in it. Though that’s not your sort. I’ll wager.” 

“ You are a very kind young man,” returned the dress- 
maker, “ a really kind young man. I accept your offer. — I 
suppose He won’t mind,” she added as an afterthought, 
shrugging her shoulders; “ and if he does, he may! ” 

“ Meaning him that you call your father. Miss ? ” asked 
Sloppy. 

“ No, no,” replied Miss Wren. “ Him, Him, Him! ” 

“ Him, him, him? ” repeated Sloppy; staring about, as if 
for Him. 

“ Him who is coming to court and marry me,” returned 
Miss Wren. “ Dear me, how slow you are! ” 

“ Oh ! Him ! ” said Sloppy. And seemed to turn thoughtful 
and a little troubled. “ I never thought of him. When is 
he coming. Miss ? ” 

“ What a question! ” cried Miss Wren. “ How should I 
know ? ” 

“ Wliere is he coming from. Miss? ” 

“Why, good gracious, how can I tell! He is coming 
from somewhere or other, I suppose, and he is coming some 
day or other, I suppose. I don’t know any more about him, 
at present.” 


PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL 


919 


This tickled Mr. Sloppy as an extraordinarily good joke, 
and he threw back his head and laughed with measureless 
enjoyment. At the sight of him laughing in that absurd 
way, the dolls’ dressmaker laughed very heartily indeed. So 
they both laughed, till they were tired. 

“ There, there, there! ” said Miss Wren. “ For goodness’ 
sake stop. Giant, or I shall be swallowed up alive, before I 
know it. And to this minute you haven’t said what you’ve 
come for.” 

“ I have come for little Miss Harmonses doll,” said 
Sloppy. 

“ I thought as much,” remarked Miss Wren, “ and here is 
little Miss Harmonses doll waiting for you. She’s folded up 
in silver paper, you see, as if she was wrapped from head to 
foot in new bank notes. Take care of her, and there’s my 
hand, and thank you again.” 

“ I’ll take more care of her than if she was a gold image,” 
said Sloppy, “ and there’s both my hands. Miss, and I’ll soon 
come back again.” 

But the greatest event of all, in the new life of Mr. and 
Mrs. John Harmon, was a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Eugene 
Wrayburn. Sadly wan and worn was the once gallant 
Eugene, and walked resting on his wife’s arm, and leaning 
heavily upon a stick. But he was daily growing stronger 
and better, and it was declared by the medical attendants 
that he might not be much disfigured by and by. It was a 
grand event, indeed, when Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Wrayburn 
came to stay at Mr. and Mrs. John Harmon’s house: where, 
by the way, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin (exquisitely happy, and 
daily cruising about, to look at shops) were likewise staying 
indefinitely. 

To Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, in confidence, did Mrs. John 
Harmon impart what she had known of the state of his wife’s 
affections, in his reckless time. And to Mrs. John Harmon, 
in confidence, did Mr. Eugene Wrayburn impart that, please 
God, she should see how his wife had changed him! 

I make no protestations,” said Eugene; “ — who does, 
who means them? — I have made a resolution.” 

But would you believe, Bella,” interposed his wife, coming 


920 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


to resume her nurse’s place at his side, for he never got on 
well without her: “ that on our wedding day he told me he 
almost thought the best thing he could do was to die ? ” 

“ As I didn’t do it, Lizzie,” said Eugene, “ I’ll do that 
better thing you suggested — for your sake.” 

That same afternoon, Eugene lying on his couch in his 
own room up-stairs, Lightwood came to chat with him, while 
Bella took his wife out for a ride. “ Nothing short of force 
will make her go,” Eugene had said; so Bella had playfully 
forced her. 

“ Dear old fellow,” Eugene began with Lightwood, reach- 
ing up his hand, “ you couldn’t have come at a better time, for 
my mind is full and I want to empty it. First of my present, 
before I touch upon my future. M. R. F., who is a much 
younger cavalier than I, and a professed admirer of beauty, 
was so affable as to remark the other day (he paid us a visit 
of two days up the river there, and much objected to the 
accommodation of the hotel), that Lizzie ought to have her 
portrait painted. Which, coming from M. R. F., may be 
considered equivalent to a melodramatic blessing.” 

“You are getting well,” said Mortimer, with a smile. 

“ Really,” said Eugene, “ I mean it. When M. R. F. said 
that, and followed it up by rolling the claret (for which he 
called, and I paid) in his mouth, and saying, ‘ My dear son, 
why do you drink this trash ? ’ it was tantamount — in him — 
to a paternal benediction on our union, accompanied with a 
gush of tears. The coolness of M. R. F. is not to be measured 
by ordinary standards.” 

“ True enough,” said Lightwood. 

“ That’s all,” pursued Eugene, “ that I shall ever hear from 
M. R. F. on the subject, and he will continue to saunter 
through the world with his hat on one side. My marriage 
being thus solemnly recognised at the family altar, I have no 
further trouble, on that score. Next, you really have done 
wonders for me, Mortimer, in easing my money perplexities, 
and with such a guardian and steward beside me, as the 
preserver of my life (I am hardly strong yet, you see, for I 
am not man enough to refer to her without a trembling voice 
— she is so inexpressibly dear to me, Mortimer!), the little 
that I can call my own will be more than it ever has been. 


PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL 921 

It need be more, for you know what it always has been in 
my hands. Nothing.” 

“ Worse than nothing, I fancy, Eugene. My own small 
income (I devoutly wish that my grandfather had left it to 
the Ocean rather than to me!) has been an effective Some- 
thing, in the way of preventing me from turning to at Any- 
thing. And I think yours has been much the same.” 

“ There spake the voice of wisdom,” said Eugene. “ We 
are shepherds both. In turning to at last, we turn to in 
earnest. Let us say no more of that, for a few years to come. 
Now, I have had an idea, Mortimer, of taking myself and my 
wife to one of the colonies, and working at my vocation there.” 

” I should be lost without you, Eugene; but you may be 
right.” 

“ No,” said Eugene, emphatically. “ Not right. Wrong! ” 

He said it with such a lively — almost angry — flash, that 
Mortimer showed himself greatly surprised. , 

“You think this thumped head of mine is excited?” 
Eugene went on, with a high look; “ not so, believe me. I 
can say to you of the healthful music of my pulse what Ham- 
let said of his. My blood is up, but wholesomely up, when 
I think of it! Tell me! Shall I turn coward to Lizzie, and 
sneak away with her, as if I were ashamed of her! Where 
would your friend’s part in this world be, Mortimer, if she 
had turned coward to him, and on immeasurably better 
occasion ? ” 

“ Honourable and staunch,” said Lightwood. “And yet, 
Eugene ” 

“ And yet what, Mortimer? ” 

“ And yet, are you sure that you might not feel (for her 
sake, I say for her sake) any slight coldness towards her on 
the part of — Society ? ” 

“ Oh! You and I may well stumble at the word,” returned 
Eugene, laughing. “ Do we mean our Tippins? ” 

“ Perhaps we do,” said Mortimer, laughing also. 

“ Faith, we do! ” returned Eugene, with great animation. 
“ We may hide behind the bush and beat about it, but we 
DO. Now my wife is something nearer to my heart, Mortimer, 
than Tippins is, and I owe her a little more than I owe to 
Tippins, and I am rather prouder of her than I ever was 


922 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


of Tippins. Therefore, I will fight it out to the last gasp, 
with her and for her, here in the open field. When I hide 
her, or strike for her, faint-heartedly, in a hole or a corner, 
do you, whom I love next best upon earth, tell me what I 
shall most righteously deserve to be told: — that she would 
have done well to have turned me over with her foot that 
night when I lay bleeding to death, and to have spat in my 
dastard face.” 

The glow that shone upon him as he spoke the words so 
irradiated his features, that he looked, for the time, as though 
he had never been mutilated. His friend responded as 
Eugene would have had him respond, and they discoursed of 
the future, until Lizzie came back. After resuming her place 
at his side, and tenderly touching his hands and his head, 
she said: 

“ Eugene, dear, you made me go out, but I ought to have 
stayed with you. You are more flushed than you have been 
for many days. What have you been doing ? ” 

“ Nothing,” replied Eugene, “ but looking forward to your 
coming back.” 

*' And talking to Mr. Lightwood,” said Lizzie, turning to 
him with a smile. “ But it cannot have been Society that 
disturbed you.” 

“ Faith, my dear love! ” retorted Eugene, in his old airy 
manner, as he laughed and kissed her, “ I rather think it 
was Society though! ” 

The word ran so much in Mortimer Lightwood’s thoughts 
as he went home to the Temple that night, that he resolved 
to take a look at Society, which he had not seen for a con- 
siderable period. 


CHAPTER THE LAST 


THE VOICE OF SOCIETY 

Behoves Mortimer Lightwood, therefore, to answer a 
dinner card from Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, requesting the 
honour, and to signify that Mr. Mortimer Lightwood will be 
happy to have the other honour. The Veneerings have been, 
as usual, indefatigably dealing dinner cards to Society, and 
whoever desires to take a hand had best be quick about it, for 
it is written in the Books of the Insolvent Fates that Veneering 
shall make a resounding smash next week. Yes. Having 
found out the clue to that great mystery how people can 
contrive to live beyond their means, and having over-jobbed 
his jobberies as legislator deputed to the Universe by the pine 
electors of Pocket-Breaches, it shall come to pass next week 
that Veneering will accept the Chiltern Hundreds, that the 
legal gentleman in Britannia’s confidence will again accept 
the Pocket-Breaches Thousands, and that the Veneerings will 
retire to Calais, there to live on Mrs. Veneering’s diamonds 
(in which Mr. Veneering, as a good husband, has from time 
to time invested considerable sums), and to relate to Neptune 
and others how that, before Veneering retired from Parlia- 
ment, the House of Commons was composed of himself and 
the six hundred and fifty-seven dearest and oldest friends he 
had in the world. It shall likewise come to pass, at as nearly 
as possible the same period, that Society will discover that 
it always did despise Veneering, and distrust Veneering, and 
that when it went to Veneering’s to dinner it always had 
misgivings — though very secretly at the time, it would seem, 
and in a perfectly private and confidential manner. 

The next week’s books of the Insolvent Fates, however, 
being not yet opened, there is the usual rush to the Veneer- 
ings, of the people who go to their house to dine with one 


924 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


another and not with them. There is Lady Tippins. There 
are Podsnap the Great, and Mrs. Podsnap. There is Twem- 
low. There are Buffer, Boots, and Brewer. There is the 
Contractor, who is Providence to five hundred thousand 
men. There is the Chairman, travelling three thousand 
miles per week. There is the brilliant genius who turned 
the shares into that remarkably exact sum of three hundred 
and seventy-five thousand pounds, no shillings, and nopence. 

To whom add Mortimer Lightwood, coming in among 
them with a resumption of his old languid air, founded on 
Eugene, and belonging to the days when he told the story 
of the man from Somewhere. 

That fresh fairy, Tippins, all but screams at sight of her 
false swain. She summons the deserter to her with her fan; 
but the deserter, predetermined not to come, talks Britain 
with Podsnap. Podsnap always talks Britain, and talks as 
if he were a sort of Private Watchman employed, in the 
British interests, against the rest of the world. “ We know 
what Russia means, sir,” says Podsnap; we know what 
France wants; we see what America is up to; but we know 
what England is. That’s enough for us.” 

However, when dinner is served, and Lightwood drops 
into his old place over against Lady Tippins, she can be 
fended off no longer. “ Long-banished Robinson Crusoe,” 
says the charmer, exchanging salutations, ” how did you 
leave the Island ? ” 

“ Thank you,” says Lightwood. “ It made no complaint 
of being in pain anywhere.” 

“ Say, how did you leave the savages ? ” asks Lady Tippins. 

“ They were becoming civilised when I left Juan Fer- 
nandez,” says Lightwood. At least they were eating one 
another, which looked like it.” 

“Tormentor!” returns the dear young creature. “You 
know what I mean, and you trifle with my impatience. Tell 
me something, immediately, about the married pair. You 
were at the wedding.” 

“ Was I, by-the-bye ? ” Mortimer pretends, at great leisure, 
to consider. “ So I was! ” 

“ How was the bride dressed? In rowing costume? ” 

Mortimer looks gloomy, and declines to answer. 


THE VOICE OF SOCIETY 


925 


“ I hope she steered herself, skiffed herself, paddled her- 
self, larboarded and starboarded herself, or whatever the 
technical term may be, to the ceremony? proceeds the 
playful Tippins. 

“ However she got to it, she graced it,” says Mortimer. 

Lady Tippins with a skittish little scream, attracts the 
general attention. “ Graced it! Take care of me if I faint. 
Veneering. He means to tell us that a horrid female water- 
man is graceful! ” 

“ Pardon me. I mean to tell you nothing. Lady Tippins,” 
replies Lightwood. And keeps his word by eating his dinner 
with a show of the utmost indifference. 

** You shall not escape me in this way, you morose back- 
woodsman,” retorts Lady Tippins. “You shall not evade 
the question, to screen your friend Eugene, who has made 
this exhibition of himself. The knowledge shall be brought 
home to you that such a ridiculous affair is condemned by 
the Voice of Society. My dear Mrs. Veneering, do let us 
resolve ourselves into a Committee of the whole House on 
the subject.” 

Mrs. Veneering, always charmed by this rattling sylph, 
cries: “ Oh yes! Do let us resolve ourselves into a Com- 
mittee of the whole House! So delicious!” Veneering 
says, “ As many as are of that opinion, say Aye, — contrary. 
No — the Ayes have it.” But nobody takes the slightest 
notice of his joke. 

“Now I am Chairwoman of Committees!” cries Lady 
Tippins. 

(“What spirits she has!” exclaims Mrs. Veneering; to 
whom likewise nobody attends.) 

“ And this,” pursues the sprightly one, “ is a Committee 
of the whole House to what-you-may-call-it — elicit, I suppose 
— the Voice of Society. The question before the Committee 
is, whether a young man of very fair family, good appear- 
ance, and some talent, makes a fool or a wise man of himself 
in marrying a female waterman, turned factory girl.” 

“ Hardly so, I think,” the stubborn Mortimer strikes in. 
“ I take the question to be, whether such a man as you 
describe, Lady Tippins, does right or wrong in marrying a 
brave woman (I say nothing of her beauty) who has saved 


926 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


his life, with a wonderful energy and address; whom he 
knows to be virtuous, and possessed of remarkable qualities; 
whom he has long admired, and who is deeply attached to 
him.” 

“ But, excuse me,” says Podsnap, with his temper and his 
shirt-collar about equally rumpled; “ was this young woman 
ever a female waterman ? ” 

“ Never. But she sometimes rowed in a boat with her 
father, I believe.” 

General sensation against the young woman. Brewer 
shakes his head. Boots shakes his head. Buffer shakes his 
head. 

“ And now, Mr. Lightwood, was she ever,” pursues Pod- 
snap, with his indignation rising high into those hair-brushes 
of his, “ a factory girl? ” 

“ Never. But she had some employment in a paper mill, 
I believe.” General sensation repeated. Brewer says, “ Oh 
dear! ” Boots says, “ Oh dear! ” Buffer says, “ Oh dear! ” 
All in a rumbling tone of protest. 

“ Then all I have to say is,” returns Podsnap, putting the 
thing away with his right arm, “ that my gorge rises against 
such a marriage — that it offends and disgusts me — that it 
makes me sick — and that I desire to know no more about 
it.” 

Now I wonder,” thinks Mortimer, amused, “ whether 
you are the Voice of Society! ”) 

“ Hear, hear, hear! ” cries Lady Tippins. “ Your opinion 
of this mesalliance, honourable colleague of the honourable 
member who has just sat down? ” 

. Mrs. Podsnap is of opinion that in these matters “ there 
should be an equality of station and fortune, and that a man 
accustomed to Society should look out for a woman accus- 
tomed to Society and capable of bearing her part in it with 
— an ease and elegance of carriage — that.” Mrs. Podsnap 
stops there, delicately intimating that every such man should 
look out for a fine woman as nearly resembling herself as he 
may hope to discover. 

(“ Now I wonder,” thinks Mortimer, “ whether you are 
the Voice! ”) 

Lady Tippins next canvasses the Contractor, of five hun- 


THE VOICE OF SOCIETY 


927 


died thousand power. It appears to this potentate that 
what the man in question should have done, would have 
been to buy the young woman a boat and a small annuity, 
and set her up for herself. These things are a question of 
beefsteaks and porter. You buy the young woman a boat. 
Very good. You buy her, at the same time, a small annuity. 
You speak of that annuity in pounds sterling, but it is in 
reality so many pounds of beefsteaks and so many pints of 
porter. On the one hand, the young woman has the boat. 
On the other hand, she consumes so many pounds of beef- 
steaks and so many pints of porter. Those beefsteaks and 
that porter are the fuel to that young woman’s engine. She 
derives therefrom a certain amount of power to row the 
boat; that power will produce so much money; you add 
that to the small annuity; and thus you get at the young 
woman’s income. That (it seems to the Contractor) is the 
way of looking at it. 

The fair enslaver having fallen into one of her gentle 
sleeps during this last exposition, nobody likes to wake her. 
Fortunately, she comes awake of herself, and puts the ques- 
tion to the Wandering Chairman. The Wanderer can only 
speak of the case as if it were his own. If such a young 
woman as the young woman described had saved his own life, 
he w^ould have been very much obliged to her, wouldn’t have 
married her, and would have got her a berth in an Electric 
Telegraph Office, where young women answer very well. 

What does the Genius of the three hundred and seventy- 
five thousand pounds, no shillings, and nopence, think? He 
can’t say what he thinks, without asking: Had the young 
woman any money? 

“ No,” says Lightwood, in an uncompromising voice: “ no 
money.” 

“ Madness and moonshine,” is then the compressed verdict 
of the Genius. ‘‘ A man may do anything lawful for money. 
But for no money! — Bosh!” 

What does Boots say? 

Boots says he wouldn't have done it under twenty thousand 
pounds. 

What does Brewer say? 

Brewer says what Boots says. 


928 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


What does Buffer say ? 

Buffer says he knows a man who married a bathing- woman, 
and bolted. 

Lady Tippins fancies she has collected the suffrages of the 
whole Committee (nobody dreaming of asking the Veneerings 
for their opinion), when, looking round the table through her 
eye-glass, she perceives Mr. Twemlow with his hand to his 
forehead. 

Good gracious! My Twemlow forgotten! My dearest! 
My own! What is his vote? 

Twemlow has the air of being ill at ease, as he takes his 
hand from his forehead and replies. “ I am disposed to 
think,” says he, “ that this is a question of the feelings of a 
gentleman.” 

“ A gentleman can have no feelings who contracts such a 
marriage,” flushes Podsnap. 

Pardon me, sir,” says Twemlow, rather less mildly than 
usual, I don’t agree with you If this gentleman’s feelings 
of gratitude, of respect, of admiration, and affection, induced 
him (as I presume they did) to marry this lady ” 

“This lady!” echoes Podsnap. 

“ Sir,” returns Twemlow, with his wristbands bristling a 
little, “ you repeat the word; I repeat the word. This lady. 
What else would you call her, if the gentleman were present ? ” 

This being something in the nature of a poser for Podsnap, 
he merely waves it away with a speechless wave. 

“ I say,” resumes Twemlow, “ if such feelings on the part 
of this gentleman induced this gentleman to marry this lady, 
I think he is the greater gentleman for the action, and makes 
her the greater lady. I beg to say that when I use the word 
gentleman, I use it in the sense in which the degree may be 
attained by any man. The feelings of a gentleman I hold 
sacred, and I confess I am not comfortable when they are 
made the subject of sport or general discussion.” 

“ I should like to know,” sneers Podsnap, “ whether your 
noble relation would be of your opinion.” 

“ Mr. Podsnap,” retorts Twemlow, “ permit me. He might 
be, or he might not be. I cannot say. But I could not 
allow even him to dictate to me on a point of great delicacy, 
on which I feel very strongly.” 


THE VOICE OF SOCIETY 


929 


Somehow, a canopy of wet blanket seems to descend upon 
the company, and Lady Tippins was never known to turn so 
very greedy, or so very cross. Mortimer Lightwood alone 
brightens. He has been asking himself, as to every other 
member of the Committee in turn, “ I wonder whether you 
are the Voice!’’ But he does not ask himself the question 
after Twemlow has spoken, and he glances in Twemlow’s 
direction as if he were grateful. When the company disperse 
— by which time Mr. and Mrs. Veneering have had quite as 
much as they want of the honour, and the guests have had 
quite as much as they want of the other honour — Mortimer 
sees Twemlow home, shakes hands with him cordially at 
parting, and fares to the Temple, gaily. 


POSTSCRIPT 


m LIEU OF PREFACE 

When I devised this story, I foresaw the likelihood that a 
class of readers and commentators would suppose that I was 
at great pains to conceal exactly what I was at great pains 
to suggest: namely, that Mr. John Harmon was not slain, 
and that Mr. John Rokesmith was he. Pleasing myself with 
the idea that the supposition might in part arise out of some 
ingenuity in the story, and thinking it worth while, in the 
interests of art, to hint to an audience that an artist (of what- 
ever denomination) may perhaps be trusted to know what he 
is about in his vocation, if they will concede him a little 
patience, I was not alarmed by the anticipation. 

To keep for a long time unsuspected, yet always working 
itself out, another purpose originating in that leading incident, 
and turning it to a pleasant and useful account at last, was 
at once the most interesting and the most difficult part of 
my design. Its difficulty was much enhanced by the mode 
of publication; for it would be very unreasonable to expect 
that many readers, pursuing a story in portions from month 
to month through nineteen months, will, until they have it 
before them complete, perceive the relations of its finer 
threads to the whole pattern which is always before the eyes 
of the story- weaver at his loom. Yet, that I hold the advan- 
tages of the mode of publication to outweigh its disadvan- 
tages, may be easily believed of one who revived it in the 
Pickwick Papers after long disuse, and has pursued it ever 
since. 

There is sometimes an odd disposition in this country to 
dispute as improbable in fiction, what are the commonest 
experiences in fact. Therefore, I note here, though it may 
not be at all necessary, that there are hundreds of Will 


POSTSCRIPT 


931 


Cases (as they are called) far more remarkable than that 
fancied in this book; and that the stores of the Prerogative 
Office teem with instances of testators who have made, 
changed, contradicted, hidden, forgotten, left cancelled, and 
left uncancelled, each many more wills than were ever made 
by the elder Mr. Harmon of Harmony Jail. 

In my social experiences since Mrs. Betty Higden came 
upon the scene and left it, I have found Circumlocutional 
champions disposed to be warm with me on the subject of 
my view of the Poor Law. My friend Mr. Bounderby could 
never see any difference between leaving the Coketown 
“ hands ” exactly as they were, and requiring them to be fed 
with turtle soup and venison out of gold spoons. Idiotic 
propositions of a parallel nature have been freely offered for 
my acceptance, and I have been called upon to admit that I 
would give Poor Law relief to anybody, anywhere, anyhow. 
Putting this nonsense aside, I have observed a suspicious 
tendency in the champions to divide into two parties; the 
one contending that there are no deserving Poor who prefer 
death by slow starvation and bitter weather, to the mercies of 
some Relieving Officers and some Union Houses; the other 
admitting that there are such Poor, but denying that they 
have any cause or reason for what they do. The records 
in our newspapers, the late exposure by The Lancet, and 
the common sense and senses of common people, furnish too 
abundant evidence against both defences. But, that my view 
of the Poor Law may not be mistaken or misrepresented, I 
will state it. I believe there has been in England, since the 
days of the Stuarts, no law so often infamously administered, 
no law so often openly violated, no law habitually so ill- 
supervised. In the majority of the shameful cases of disease 
and death from destitution that shock the Public and dis- 
grace the country, the illegality is quite equal to the in- 
humanity — and known language could say no more of their 
lawlessness. 

On Friday the Ninth of June in the present year, Mr. and 
Mrs. Boffin (in their manuscript dress of receiving Mr. and 
Mrs. Lammle at breakfast) were on the South-Eastern 
Railway with me, in a terribly destructive accident. When 
I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back 


932 


OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 


into my carriage — nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught 
aslant upon the turn — to extricate the worthy couple. They 
were much soiled, but otherwise unhurt. The same happy 
result attended Miss Bella Wilfer on her wedding day, and 
Mr. Riderhood inspecting Bradley Headstone’s red necker- 
chief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout thankfulness 
that I can never be much nearer parting company with my 
readers for ever than I was then, until there shall be written 
against my life, the two words with which I have this day 
closed this book : — The End. 


September 2, 1865. 



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